A cancer diagnosis changes everything. The treatment itself - surgery, chemotherapy, radiation - can be gruelling.
A cancer diagnosis changes everything. Treatment can be physically demanding and its effects But what happens after? For many people, the physical effects of cancer and its treatment don’t end when active treatment does. Fatigue, pain, reduced strength and mobility, lymphoedema, and changes to bladder and bowel function can persist for months or years - yet until recently, most people were left to navigate this largely on their own.
PINC & STEEL is the programme that changed that. Born in New Zealand and now practised across 24 countries, it’s one of the most significant contributions Aotearoa has made to global cancer care - and Habit Health is proud to be part of delivering it.
PINC & STEEL was founded in 2005 by Lou James, a New Zealand physiotherapist who witnessed something she couldn’t accept: people recovering from cancer - particularly young women recovering from breast cancer - being discharged from hospital and essentially left to manage on their own. No structured rehabilitation. No physical support. No roadmap back to the life they had before.
Lou had the clinical skills to help. What she lacked was a system. So she built one.
Starting from her own practice, Lou developed an individualised, physiotherapy-based rehabilitation programme originally known as Pink Pilates, focused on the physical and mental wellbeing of women recovering from cancer. The programme grew rapidly, and Lou realised the potential to reach far more people by training other physiotherapists across New Zealand and eventually the world.
In 2006, she established the PINC & STEEL Cancer Rehabilitation Foundation NZ - a registered charitable trust and New Zealand’s only charity dedicated solely to cancer rehabilitation - to ensure that cost was never a barrier to access.