Objective To understand the real experience regarding perioperative exercise rehabilitation supportive care from the perspectives of nurses, elderly patients with esophageal cancer, and their caregivers, and to provide a basis for improving supportive care strategy of exercise rehabilitation for this group of patients. Methods Purposive sampling was used to select 9 nurses working in department of esophageal surgery, 14 elderly patients with esophageal cancer and 8 caregivers for semi-structured interviews.Colaizzi′s 7-step analysis method was used to analyze the interview data. Results The perioperative exercise rehabilitation supportive care experience mainly included three themes:①practice dilemma caused by patients′ own obstacles;②the current exercise rehabilitation program needed to be optimized and improved from the perspective of the elderly;③support forms that fitted elderly patients′ preferences would benefit patients. Conclusion In the process of participating in perioperative supportive care of exercise rehabilitation for elderly patients with esophageal cancer, there are obstacles such as low physical efficacy, negative psychological emotion and low cognitive efficiency.Supportive care needs of patients can be met from the aspects of setting personalized and phased rehabilitation goals, expanding the contents of rehabilitation, and taking patients′ preferences into consideration.