Physiotherapists
The core group. Assessment, staging, complete decongestive therapy, measurement and fitting for compression garments, and building a maintenance programme a patient will actually follow.
Lymphoedema training in Kenya
A country cannot be treated one limb at a time.
Lymphoedema training and structured certification for physiotherapists, nurses, clinical officers and oncology teams — delivered in Kenya, built on the curriculum framework developed at Kenyatta National Hospital, and available across the African continent.
Why it matters
Trained lymphoedema therapists across this continent are few, and almost all of them are in cities. The arithmetic does not work.
Most patients with lymphoedema in Kenya are not seen by a lymphoedema therapist. They are seen by whoever is in front of them — a clinical officer, a ward nurse, a general physiotherapist — and whether they are recognised, staged and referred depends entirely on what that person knows.
That is a training problem, not a specialist problem. A clinician who can recognise early swelling, stage it correctly, know when compression is unsafe and refer appropriately will change more outcomes in a year than any single specialist clinic.
Training also solves the problem that sends patients abroad. Certification has historically meant travelling overseas at considerable cost. The curriculum framework developed at Kenyatta National Hospital exists so that clinicians can be trained properly here, at home, in the conditions they actually work in.
Who it is for
Sessions are pitched to the group in the room rather than delivered from a fixed script.
Who should attend
Oncology and surgical teams
Breast, gynaecological and general surgical teams, oncology nurses and radiotherapy staff. Focused on baseline measurement before node surgery, early detection afterwards, and when to refer.
Nurses and clinical officers
Recognition, staging, skin care, safe compression and the management of acute attacks — the skills that matter most where no therapist is available.
County and community health teams
Teams working in areas endemic for lymphatic filariasis or podoconiosis, where hygiene-based morbidity management can be delivered at community level and makes an enormous difference.
What is covered
Content is adjusted to the group, the caseload and the time available.
The core curriculum
- Anatomy and physiology of the lymphatic system, and what actually fails in lymphoedema.
- Recognition and differential diagnosis — distinguishing lymphoedema from cardiac, renal, hepatic and venous causes of swelling, and filariasis from podoconiosis.
- ISL staging and objective limb measurement, including how to take and record a baseline.
- Complete decongestive therapy — manual lymphatic drainage, multilayer short-stretch bandaging, remedial exercise and skin care.
- Compression garments — measuring, fitting, classes of compression, replacement intervals and common fitting errors.
- Safety and contraindications — cardiac failure, deep vein thrombosis, arterial disease, acute infection and neuropathy.
- Acute attacks and cellulitis — recognition, immediate management and prevention.
- Patient education and self-management, which is where most long-term outcome is decided.
- Building a referral pathway that functions in a real hospital, not on paper.
Practical sessions are hands-on. Bandaging and measurement are taught by doing them, not by watching slides, and participants practise on each other before they practise on patients.
Formats
From a single in-service session to full structured certification.
How training is delivered
In-service training
A session or series delivered at your facility, built around your caseload. The usual starting point for a department that wants its staff to recognise and refer correctly.
Workshops
Longer practical sessions with hands-on bandaging, measurement and garment fitting, for groups that will go on to treat rather than only recognise.
Structured certification
The full course built on the curriculum framework developed at Kenyatta National Hospital, for clinicians intending to practise as lymphoedema therapists.
Conference sessions and webinars
Scientific sessions, keynotes and online teaching. The 2026 national webinar series reached over five thousand health workers.
Training is delivered in English or Kiswahili, in person across Kenya and the wider African continent, or online where travel is impractical.
Your instructor
Who delivers the training
Dr. Janet Mwau is a certified lymphoedema therapist and certified clinical instructor, lead lymphoedema therapist at Kenyatta National Hospital, and founder of Lymphyt Lymphoedema and Physiotherapy Centre. She is the vision bearer and designer of the KNH lymphoedema certification course and its curriculum framework, and lead instructor of the Lymphoedema and Oncology Wellness Programme.
She chairs the Kenya National Chapter of the Lymphatic Education & Research Network, pioneered Kenya's first World Lymphoedema Day commemoration, and has facilitated lymphoedema training at national and East African physiotherapy scientific conferences. She spoke on unmet needs in lymphoedema at the CCC Conference in Vienna in 2026.
Arrange training
Tell us the group, the setting and roughly what you want them to be able to do afterwards.
What to include when you get in touch
- Your facility or organisation, and where you are
- Who would attend, their roles, and roughly how many
- What they currently see — cancer-related, filarial, podoconiosis, mixed
- Whether you want recognition and referral, or hands-on treatment skills
- Time available: a session, a day, or a full course
- Any dates you are working towards
Training is arranged directly with Dr. Janet Mwau.
Arrange trainingSending patients rather than training staff? The referral page sets out who to refer, what to include and the safety checks before compression.