Alberta doctors offer prescription for fitness
Written orders help patients get active
Patients in Leduc, Beaumont and Devon are getting access to a new kind of medical care: a written prescription for exercise.
In what may be the first of its kind in Alberta and perhaps Canada, 51 doctors working in the primary care network south of Edmonton have new prescription pads to officially prescribe running, swimming or weights, including a free one-month pass to the local recreation centre.
The Prescription to Get Active program is modelled after a similar one called Green Prescription in New Zealand, which saw a 34-minute increase each week of physical activity for those who were given written prescriptions rather than verbal advice from doctors, according to 2003 research at the University of Auckland.
“It’s a tangible thing,” said Justin Balko, a family physician who has worked in Leduc for two years. He is also the lead physician for chronic disease management in the Leduc Beaumont Devon Primary Care Network and has handed out between 20 and 40 activity prescriptions since the program was launched in November. “When it’s written down on a piece of paper, there’s an element to it that there’s a little more importance attached to it.”
The target group comprises relatively healthy people who are inactive and at risk for developing chronic health issues such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure or heart disease if their sedentary lifestyle persists.
About 800 patients each year who have chronic illnesses are already referred by the primary care doctors to a central clinic staffed by a dietitian, pharmacist, exercise specialist and nurse, where patients receive oneon-one advice to improve their health.
Of the area’s 55,000-patient population, the primary care network estimates 11,000 are obese, 20,000 are overweight and 9,000 have high blood pressure.
But the new prescription program is intended to alleviate some of those problems.
“While we do have medical interventions that can treat it, we do know that our most underused angle is to prevent,” Balko said. “This program is giving us a whole new opportunity to engage patients with multiple angles of our healthcare team to find ways of empowering themselves.”
Approximately 250 patients have received fitness prescriptions since November, and each suggests a fitness intensity, duration and frequency. Doctors may suggest overweight patients with joint issues or osteoarthritis swim instead of run. Patients are urged to consider walking or biking along the area’s trail systems, to play catch or Frisbee golf or try snowshoeing. But the prescription also gives people the opportunity to tour the Leduc Recreation Centre, get free fitness advice and learn how to use machines that can be intimidating for the uninitiated.
“It’s helping people get into the active lifestyle,” said Roger Smolnicky, director of the rec centre. “It’s not just for people who are fit.”