Exercise on prescription: changes in physical activity and health-related quality of life in five Danish programmes

Abstract

Exercise on prescription can contribute to improvements in physical activity level and health-related quality of life in physically inactive patients with or at increased risk of developing lifestyle diseases. An acceptable number of participants achieved and maintained improvements in physical activity level and health-related quality of life.

Individual user involvement at Healthy Life Centres: a qualitative study exploring the perspective of health professionals

“…The World Health Organization (WHO) has proposed a number of policy options and actions for implementation by the Member States (WHO, 2013, 2014), stating that the governments are the guardians of a population’s health and thus are responsible for ensuring that institutional, legal, financial and service arrangements are provided for the prevention and control of the NCDs. Examples of national initiatives aiming for the adoption and maintenance of healthy lifestyle behaviours are physical activity programmes such as the “Exercise on Prescription” (Sørensen, Sørensen, Skovgaard, Bredahl, & Puggaard, 2011) and “Physical Activity on Prescription” (Olsson et al, 2015; Rödjer, Jonsdottir, & Börjesson, 2016) programmes initiated in Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. Many countries have also developed policies to promote healthy eating (Capacci et al, 2012).…”

Functional training and timed nutrition intervention in infectious medical patients

“…41,42 HRQoL was measured at baseline by EQ5D-3L. 43,44 EQ5D-3L descriptive system comprises the following five dimensions: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/ discomfort and anxiety/depression.…”

The Busy General Practitioner’s Reference Guide to Increasing Physical Activity Levels in the British population and Associated Benefits/Risks: A Review of the Literature

“…The Writing Group for the Activity Counseling Trial Research Group [37,38] did not find any statistically significant increases in cardiovascular fitness amongst male participants but showed a mean difference in VO2max of 73.9 mL/min between participants given exercise prescription and controls. A cohort study by Sorensen et al [24,25] in Denmark found that one in three participants achieved an increased PAL (of greater than 1 MET), 4 months after being given an exercise prescription, similar improvements were seen at 10 and 16 months although a gain of 1 MET is of clinical significance is subject to debate. It must be noted however that the base line average METs (40) was relatively high compared to normal populations.…”

“…ERS's, also known as exercise prescriptions, have been shown to have improvements in patients' PA levels on completion [23][24][25]. They typically offer "personalized secondary prevention located in primary healthcare involving the General Practitioner or other primary healthcare staff" [25].…”