The positive impacts of physical activity play a role in all three levels of cancer prevention, enabling:

• to limit the onset of the disease (primary prevention),
• combating the adverse effects of the disease and its treatments (secondary prevention),
• limit the risk of recurrence (tertiary prevention).

The aim is therefore to raise public awareness of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and to inform about the benefits of physical activity in cancer prevention.

Regular, appropriate physical activity is essential. Studies on certain types of cancer have shown that appropriate physical activity in cancer patients reduces fatigue (30%), improves quality of life, and decreases the risk of recurrence (up to 40%).

Many thanks to the partners and funders of adapted physical activity at the Caen Normandy University Hospital: Onco Normandie Regional Cancer Network (partner), ARS Normandie, departmental committee of the League Against Cancer 14, Cadet Roussel association (funders)

The Caen Normandy University Hospital has been actively promoting adapted physical activity since 2008. One of the tangible results of this initiative is the opening of physical activity rooms in June 2018.

All the events and information (general public or specialized) organized at the University Hospital as well as the opening of the rooms allowed the recognition in 2021 of the Maison Sport Santé of the Caen Normandie University Hospital.

Dr. Antoine Desvergée of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine Department at Caen Normandy University Hospital has created a Research Group on Adapted Physical Activity and Health, GRAPAS. It brings together specialists from the medical field (geriatricians, nutritionists, addiction specialists, psychiatrists, oncologists, vascular physicians, rheumatologists, pain specialists, sports medicine physicians, etc.), academics from the STAPS (Sciences and Techniques of Physical and Sports Activities) department, organizations such as OncoNormandie, and institutional partners like the Normandy Regional Olympic Committee and the Normandy Sports Center. Together, they are using adapted physical activity (APA) rooms as a tool for research and clinical studies.

Following a call for projects from the Ministry of Solidarity and Health launched in 2020, the adapted physical activity room at the Caen Normandy University Hospital was awarded the "Sport-Health Houses" label in 2021.

The Sport-Health Centres emerged within the framework of the National Sport and Health Strategy 2019-2024 (SNSS). They aim in particular to promote health and well-being through physical activity and sport, and to develop and utilize adapted physical activity for therapeutic purposes.

They bring together health and sports professionals and are aimed in particular at healthy people who wish to (re)start physical and sporting activity with specific support, as well as at people suffering from chronic illnesses or long-term conditions requiring, on medical prescription, adapted, safe physical activity supervised by trained professionals.

573 Sport-Health Centres are now recognised across the entire territory.