Chemo Brain:
Health Story

Aired on Lifetime Television
Sunday, October 14 and December 2, 2007
Show 422

47-year-old Leanne Sucher is a busy, active mother of three boys. Keeping up with the kids' schedules, working and maintaining a marriage is tough enough, but imagine trying to do it all in the mental fog known as chemo brain. "It's the simple day to day stuff and forgetfulness. The amount of time I waste trying to remember what I was going to do or looking for things is just kind of overwhelming," says Leanne. Three years ago, Leanne underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer and experienced symptoms. Leanne isn't alone, 15 percent of the nation's breast cancer survivors remain distracted years after chemo treatments. And for years, no one even believed the condition existed. People who experienced the symptoms gave it the name "chemo brain". For only the past ten years, the term and the condition have been accepted by the medical community. Dr. Mark Malkin manages a chemo brain clinic. He finds many chemo brain sufferers are getting relief with prescription medications commonly used to treat ADHD, narcolepsy and Alzheimer's disease.