MDs to prescribe exercise as medicine
Doctors in the U.S. have a new online tool to help them prescribe exercise to help prevent and treat diseases.
A joint project of the American College of Sports Medicine's (ACSM) Exercise is Medicine initiative and the Interactive Health Group of PCE Fitness, the solution connects patients to healthcare providers and fitness professionals.
According to the ACSM, patients would take a greater interest in exercising to stay healthy if their doctors advised therm to do it and helped them get on with it. However, while 40 percent of doctors tell their patients about the importance of exercise, it isn't often that they can give concrete solutions as to the best ways for the patients to get physically active.
Now, this online solution lets doctors risk stratify patients; determine physical activity levels; give personalized exercise prescriptions that are medically accurate; and find the most suitable exercise professionals to help their patients, all from his patient computer.
Patients who don't need to be under a medically supervised exercise program can setup a personal account to self-manage their exercise programs as well as general health and fitness. This account will enable them to choose an exercise program, log exercise results and track outcomes and vital statistics.
The online system is undergoing testing now and is scheduled to launch later this year.
Top Image Credit: © Eric Gevaert
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