The Science of Daily Cancer Survivorship Education and Empowerment
NOW OPEN FOR PATIENT ENROLMENT!
Patient Empowerment Program
What Is BreastPEP?
BreastPEP is a customized version of the Cancer Patient Empowerment Program (CancerPEP), tailored specifically for individuals affected by breast cancer.
It is a comprehensive, daily, home-based 6-month / 26-week empowerment program designed and delivered by an oncologist and a psychology professor-scientist team. Participants receive a daily email and short PEP video that guide, demonstrate, and motivate them to engage in evidence-informed health-promoting practices from home.
BreastPEP is designed to support participants early in their breast cancer care pathway by helping them build healthy, sustainable routines that support their physical, emotional, and social well-being throughout treatment and recovery.
Who Can Join the BreastPEP Trial?
To join the BreastPEP clinical trial, participants must be recently diagnosed with breast cancer and not yet have started breast cancer treatment.
Interested individuals can contact our research team to complete an eligibility assessment, learn more about the study, and discuss potential enrolment.
Hybrid Delivery Model
BreastPEP is delivered in a hybrid format designed to meet participants where they are.
Participants receive daily emails and short videos covering the different components of the program. Once a month, participants are invited to meet live online as a group for connection, coaching, education, and support.
This blended approach combines the structure of daily at-home practice with the encouragement, education, and connection of real-time group sessions.
What the BreastPEP Program Includes
Breast-Cancer-Specific Arm and Shoulder Physiotherapy
BreastPEP includes specialized arm and shoulder physiotherapy videos designed to support mobility, strength, flexibility, range of motion, and upper-body function during breast cancer treatment and recovery.
Participants are guided through exercises that can help them safely maintain and rebuild movement and function following breast cancer surgery and other treatments.
Aerobic Exercise, Yoga, and Qi Gong
The program encourages regular movement through aerobic exercise, yoga, and qi gong.
These activities are designed to support cardiovascular fitness, strength, balance, flexibility, energy, and overall well-being, while helping participants establish a sustainable routine of physical activity.
Progressive Strength Training
Participants receive a progressive strength-training program with guided follow-along videos and different levels of difficulty.
The program focuses on using safe, accessible exercises that can be adapted to each participant’s abilities and stage of treatment or recovery.
Nutrition for Health and Recovery
BreastPEP includes practical, evidence-informed nutrition education to help participants make healthy food choices during and after breast cancer treatment.
Cooking videos demonstrate simple and nutritious meals while exploring dietary patterns that support overall health and well-being.
Relaxation, Stress Reduction, and Breathwork
Participants learn practical relaxation, stress-reduction, and breathing techniques that can be incorporated into everyday life.
These practices are designed to help reduce stress and anxiety, promote restful sleep, support emotional regulation, and build resilience during the cancer experience.
Visualization, Meditation, and Mind-Body Practices
BreastPEP introduces guided visualization, meditation, and other mind-body practices that help participants cultivate calm, awareness, hope, and a greater sense of connection with themselves.
Participants are encouraged to develop simple practices they can return to during periods of uncertainty, treatment, recovery, and everyday life.
Sleep and Restorative Health Practices
The program provides strategies to support healthy sleep and restorative routines, recognizing the important role that rest plays in physical recovery, emotional well-being, energy, and quality of life.
Relationship, Connection, and Resilience Skills
BreastPEP includes education and practical tools to support communication, relationships, emotional well-being, meaning-making, and social connection.
Participants are encouraged to strengthen the relationships and inner resources that can help sustain them throughout their cancer journey.
Building Healthy Habits That Last
Throughout the program, participants learn about the science of healthy habit formation — how small, repeated actions can become sustainable routines.
BreastPEP helps participants explore how to strengthen motivation, create supportive environments, build habits that promote well-being, and gradually let go of habits that no longer serve them.
Monthly Live Online Sessions
Participants are invited to join live monthly online videoconferences with program leads Dr. Gabriela Ilie and Dr. Rob Rutledge, together with fellow PEP participants and PEP Mentors — former participants who have completed the six-month program and have chosen to remain involved.
These monthly videoconferences have been held continuously since the program’s inception in 2019 and continue well beyond completion of the six-month program. There is no end date to participation: graduates are welcome to continue attending for as long as they find the sessions helpful.
The monthly meetings provide ongoing science-based education and updates across the different components of the PEP program, including exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, sleep, relationships, healthy habit formation, and other aspects of physical and emotional well-being. They also provide a continuing space for questions, encouragement, shared experience, and connection.
Over time, these meetings have grown into a perpetual international support community, bringing together people currently participating in the program and those who completed it years ago. Participants and Mentors join from Canada, New Zealand, and other countries, creating a unique community in which people can continue learning from the science, from the program team, and from one another long after their initial six months are complete.
Participants may also choose to join an optional Facebook support group for additional peer connection throughout the program.
BreastPEP brings these approaches together into one daily program, helping participants take an active role in supporting their health and quality of life during breast cancer treatment and recovery.
Click play on the introductory video below to learn more about BreastPEP.
Watch Our Documentary: Empower
To watch our documentary, Empower – winner of Best Documentary at the 2025 Mosaic International Film Festival – please click the link below.
What does it mean to truly live, even when life feels uncertain?
Interested in BreastPEP?
To enrol in BreastPEP or to learn more, please contact our research team:
Email: PEP@nshealth.ca
BreastCancerPEP — Check Eligibility / Request to Enrol Form
You may also complete our eligibility and enrolment interest form, and a member of our research team will contact you. BreastCancerPEP is currently recruiting participants in Nova Scotia only.
bcpep.org 