Background

: Many cancer patients who get bone metastases live longer thanks to the successful research and development of medicines during recent years. Many studies show general health benefits from physical activity. For patients with bone metastases the possibility of physical activity perhaps should limit? Nurses at oncological units are often in lifelong contact with this group of patients. It´s therefore important to have knowledge about the bone metastases and how it influence the patient´s possibility of performing physical activity in order to support and encourage the patient to safely physical activity.

Aim

: To describe the patient´s possibility of physical activity with metastases to the bone.

Method

: A literature study.

Results

: The extension of the bone metastases shall be verified through X-ray. Based on the result estimation should be done regarding the risks for fractures. Few metastases allow the patient to perform more physical activity. No study showed that physical activity according to carefully elaborated exercise programmes will be of any risk for patients with bone metastases.

Conclusions

: The conclusion of this study was that research within nursing of the chosen problem is limited. The nurse is the one who often meets this group of patients in treatment and it is important that he/she has adequate knowledge about the individual patients’ possibilities to perform physical activity. Even if the result was not that big there is still a consensus among the articles included. Nevertheless this area seems to be fairly unexplored and more studies are needed to strengthen the evidence.