Eileen Hacker
ProfessorScience of Nursing Care,
ude[dot]ui[at]rekcahde
Exercise in People Receiving Intensive Cancer Therapy
Eileen Danaher Hacker, PhD, APN, AOCN, FAAN is a Professor and Department Chair, Science of Nursing Care, Indiana University School of Nursing, and Visiting Professor, Ulster University. Dr. Hacker is committed to advancing symptom science and promoting quality of life outcomes in people with cancer. Her progressive research program focuses on fatigue, physical activity, exercise, and quality of life in people receiving intensive cancer treatment. Dr. Hacker has conducted multiple clinical trials testing physical activity and exercise interventions in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients. The findings from this single-blind randomized controlled trial demonstrated that the moderate-intensity 6-week strength training program reduced fatigue while maintaining functional ability and muscle strength in the strength training group compared to the usual care plus attention control with health education group. Adherence to strength training was high, demonstrating our ability to balance intervention effectiveness with participant burden during the acute recovery. The strength training intervention was strategically designed pragmatic physical activity and exercise interventions to be seamlessly integrated into clinical practice. The Oncology Nursing Society selected her exercise and quality of life work to help guide clinical practice as evidenced by the extensive referencing of her publications and a free podcast of her lecture, “Quality of life and exercise: Strengthening the connections” on the Oncology Nursing Society's website. She has led efforts to systematically characterize persistent fatigue in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation survivors; advancing symptom science. She developed a novel methodology to examine the temporal, dynamic relationship between real-time fatigue and free-living physical activity in real-world settings. Dr. Hacker co-authored the quality of life chapter in the definitive cancer nursing textbook, Cancer Nursing: Practices and Principles, and was invited by the editor of Research in Gerontological Nursing to be the lead author of a state-of-the-science article examining issues related to quality of life measurement in older adults.