Overcoming Knowledge Barriers to Accessing Oncology Yoga Programs

Integrating supportive care services like yoga into oncology treatments can significantly enhance a patient's quality of life, yet administrative and structural hurdles often limit their reach. In a conversation with CancerNetwork® at the 51st Annual Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Congress, Leah R. Yeager, DNP, APRN, FNP-C, discussed a key barrier to accessing these services: knowledge.

Despite the yoga program being fully funded and centrally located on the third floor of the main clinic building, many eligible patients and staff remain entirely unaware of its existence. To overcome this lack of knowledge and maximize the impact of this free resource, the Yeager emphasized the critical need for improved internal marketing and awareness resources across the entire institution, ensuring patients can easily access supportive care with no added financial burden.

Yeager is an advanced practice provider at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

Transcript:

The way that the cancer center where I work is structured is, the clinic where I work, we do [solid tumors], GU, GI, sarcomas, and then upstairs we have breast cancer patients. Then in a different building, but still affiliated with the same cancer center, we have head and neck and lung [cancers], the head and neck clinic. A huge barrier is the lack of knowledge to know that that program even exists. It is on the third floor in the building where I work, so it is right where most of the patients receive their treatment.

We need to get that information out, so somehow it needs to be marketed or branded a bit better across the entire cancer center. That was a huge barrier to yoga in general, not just for my research… getting the information out there about the program––that it even exists. It's free, so it's not a fee-based program. It's free to all patients at the cancer center where I work, and that that's a big thing that people look for: something that they're not having to pay out of pocket for.

Reference

Yeager LR, Butler K, Stefaniak K, Chitwood H. Utilizing integrative medicine services for yoga to reduce cancer related fatigue. Presented at: 51st Annual Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Congress; May 13-17, 2026; San Antonio, TX. Poster 590