TECHNICAL Seeing clients today?

There is one life saving intervention you can support - it’s called daily exercise!

By Ann Gates

loved ones, have stopped moving at the levels of physical activity consistent with daily health. Urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles, poverty, obesogenic environments and poor access to healthy food choices are all examples of how the global epidemic of inactivity (1) contributes to the pandemic health burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

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The World Health Organisation believes that more than 60% of the global population is not sufficiently active (2). In fact, inactivity is the world’s 4th biggest killer. The link between inactivity and heart and stroke disease is well documented (3). The total number of global deaths due to heart and stroke disease is now over 17.3 million a year. Today, in the gym, exercise referral class, leisure facility or community there are clients at risk of heart disease and premature death. That loss of life’s potential is no longer acceptable as an outcome for heart health.

Physical activity, at any age, for any gender, within all cultures and ethnicities, within any ability, can protect your client against a multitude of chronic health problems, including many forms of heart and stroke disease (4). Exercise works by regulating and maintaining weight and improving the body’s use of insulin. It also reduces the body’s inflammatory responses thought to increase the risks of a

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aily life in the 21st century often limits our health outcomes and aspirations. Our world, whatever nation we are part of, and the communities in which we live, together with our

variety of NCDs. In 2012, the World Heart Foundation asked all health and fitness professionals to help encourage people to become more physically active (5) and to embrace the concept of exercise as a ‘vital sign’ (6) in their daily, clinical practice. This is because the known health benefits were becoming medically clear: asking patients to exercise for at least 150 minutes a week significantly reduces their risk of chronic diseases, especially heart and stroke disease (7). Most importantly, it makes clients feel in control of their health, able to move without pain and discomfort, reduces their risks of disability and significantly improves their quality of life. For the secondary prevention of heart disease, the evidence for physical activity shows it is effective in reducing cardiovascular risk (8).

So, when you see your client today, what are your clinical decisions going to be? Are you going to champion the best medical evidence to date and offer a graduated dose of medical treatment in the form of exercise? Or are you going to ‘disable’ the client by not addressing a root cause of their ill health, by not signposting them to a medicine (such as exercise), which in fact, works better than most medicines, especially in heart disease and stroke (9)?

As part of brief intervention, you can choose a specific exercise prescription (10), which supports and prevents your client from the risks of inactivity and significant ill health, and lowers their risk of heart disease.

Helping them to exercise, daily, within their abilities, environments, lifestyle, and do whatever it takes to save their life from disability

The REPs Journal 2014;30(summer):20-21