Cognition is the process of how you learn, remember, and become aware of what is around you.
This process includes being able to do the following:
When your cognition changes, you may have problems with daily tasks.
This summary is about cognitive changes that occur in people with cancer and cancer survivors.
Your thought process may change, and it may be hard for you to focus and remember things the same way as you did before your cancer treatment.
Talk to your doctor about memory loss and thinking problems you have during or after treatment.
Other conditions may also cause cognitive problems. Talk to your doctor if you have memory loss or are unable to do the following:
You may also notice the following changes:
Factors that cause cognitive problems in people with cancer and cancer survivors include the following:
The cognitive effects of endocrine therapy were studied in breast cancer survivors. Patients who received 5 years of treatment with exemestane were compared with those who received 2.5 years of tamoxifen followed by 2.5 years of exemestane, and with healthy participants. Findings suggested that tamoxifen may have more adverse cognitive effects than exemestane. More studies are needed to confirm these results.
Your doctor will ask about your health history and usual daily activities to find out a cause of your cognitive problems. Your doctor will also do an exam to check for signs of disease.
The goal of cognitive rehabilitation is to improve your memory and the way you think, organize, and make decisions. Cognitive rehabilitation involves the following:
Movement therapy or exercises, such as tai chi, qigong, or yoga, may improve the way you think and focus.
Activities that restore attention may help you stay focused on what is around you. These activities may include walking, gardening, bird-watching, and caring for pets.
Meditation may help improve cognitive function. Meditation is a mind–body practice in which a person focuses his or her attention on something, such as an object, word, phrase, or breathing. This will help keep you from being distracted or having stressful thoughts or feelings. Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a type of meditation that focuses on bringing attention and awareness to each moment.
Several drugs have been studied to treat cognitive problems in people who have or who have had cancer, such as psychostimulants and erythropoietin-stimulating agents, but results are mixed. More research is needed.
Physician Data Query (PDQ) is the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) comprehensive cancer information database. The PDQ database contains summaries of the latest published information on cancer prevention, detection, genetics, treatment, supportive care, and complementary and alternative medicine. Most summaries come in two versions. The health professional versions have detailed information written in technical language. The patient versions are written in easy-to-understand, nontechnical language. Both versions have cancer information that is accurate and up to date and most versions are also available in Spanish.
PDQ is a service of the NCI. The NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH is the federal government’s center of biomedical research. The PDQ summaries are based on an independent review of the medical literature. They are not policy statements of the NCI or the NIH.
This PDQ cancer information summary has current information about expert-reviewed information summary about causes and management of cognitive impairment in people with cancer. It is meant to inform and help patients, families, and caregivers. It does not give formal guidelines or recommendations for making decisions about health care.
Editorial Boards write the PDQ cancer information summaries and keep them up to date. These Boards are made up of experts in cancer treatment and other specialties related to cancer. The summaries are reviewed regularly and changes are made when there is new information. The date on each summary ("Updated") is the date of the most recent change.
The information in this patient summary was taken from the health professional version, which is reviewed regularly and updated as needed, by the PDQ Supportive and Palliative Care Editorial Board.
A clinical trial is a study to answer a scientific question, such as whether one treatment is better than another. Trials are based on past studies and what has been learned in the laboratory. Each trial answers certain scientific questions in order to find new and better ways to help cancer patients. During treatment clinical trials, information is collected about the effects of a new treatment and how well it works. If a clinical trial shows that a new treatment is better than one currently being used, the new treatment may become "standard." Patients may want to think about taking part in a clinical trial. Some clinical trials are open only to patients who have not started treatment.
Clinical trials can be found online at NCI's website. For more information, call the Cancer Information Service (CIS), NCI's contact center, at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
PDQ is a registered trademark. The content of PDQ documents can be used freely as text. It cannot be identified as an NCI PDQ cancer information summary unless the whole summary is shown and it is updated regularly. However, a user would be allowed to write a sentence such as “NCI’s PDQ cancer information summary about breast cancer prevention states the risks in the following way: [include excerpt from the summary].”
The best way to cite this PDQ summary is:
PDQ® Supportive and Palliative Care Editorial Board. PDQ Cognitive Impairment in Adults with Cancer. Bethesda, MD: National Cancer Institute. Updated <MM/DD/YYYY>. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/side-effects/memory/cognitive-impairment-pdq. Accessed <MM/DD/YYYY>.
Images in this summary are used with permission of the author(s), artist, and/or publisher for use in the PDQ summaries only. If you want to use an image from a PDQ summary and you are not using the whole summary, you must get permission from the owner. It cannot be given by the National Cancer Institute. Information about using the images in this summary, along with many other images related to cancer can be found in Visuals Online. Visuals Online is a collection of more than 3,000 scientific images.
The information in these summaries should not be used to make decisions about insurance reimbursement. More information on insurance coverage is available on Cancer.gov on the Managing Cancer Care page.
More information about contacting us or receiving help with the Cancer.gov website can be found on our Contact Us for Help page. Questions can also be submitted to Cancer.gov through the website’s E-mail Us.