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HANDS - Head and Neck Disease Support
Our mssion is to deliver information to head and neck cancer survivors and those under treatment to improve quality of life. To make the public aware of the causes of head and neck cancer and the effects on the people living with it. To promote prevention of the disease.
At UT Medical Group, the support group "HANDS" is ready to assist head and neck cancer patients. Whether you have just been diagnosed or are years into your recovery, HANDS has a place for you. In addition to personal mentoring and discussion groups, HANDS also sponsors activities throughout the year, including head and neck cancer educational presentations for community groups and schools and free cancer screenings. The group also holds an annual "survivor celebration" for patients and their families.
Encouragement from family, friends, providers, and other patients is an important part of recovery. Because head and neck cancer can often affect the way a person speaks or looks, patients sometimes have a hard time adjusting to these changes. That’s why a strong support system is important.
Scared Smokeless:
HANDS has been involved in working with the community to reach kids with a program called "Scared Smokeless". This program uses graphic pictures of real head and neck cancers along with statistics of teenage tobacco use. The presentation is in a power point format and projected on a regular movie screen. We have been amazed at how quiet the children are as they look at the pictures.
The program is very interactive. We have the children stand to show the percentage of a class that will start smoking by graduation. We use peppermint to demonstrate the areas that smoke and the carcinogens touch as it is inhaled. The different parts of the body are called by name and the children are encouraged to find them; for example the vibration of the larynx. As the surgery pictures are shown we use the landmarks of larger structures such as the tongue and mandible to help the children get a sense of what they are looking at. Intra-operative pictures are very popular and gross, for which the children love.
The best part of our program is a laryngectomy patient presents his or her story to the children.
- March 21, 2007 Meeting - Speech and swallowing.
- April 14, 2007 “Scared Smokeless 5K”
- April 18, 2007 Meeting - Acute and Chronic pain management.
- April 21, 2007 3rd Annual Denim and Diamonds Gala
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