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features

Strategy: Prescribing activity

Linking fitness professionals to the NHS

Published in Health Club Management 2019 issue 2

There have been two revolutions in healthcare. The first in the 19th Century was the Public Health Revolution in which large-scale engineering of sewers and water systems – enabled by stable government and growing wealth – reduced mortality from the great epidemics that ravaged Europe.

The most feared were cholera and typhoid – and then came the clean water revolution as a solution.

The last 50 years have seen the second wave of change, the High Tech Revolution, in which developments such as MRI, transplantation, chemotherapy and joint replacement have transformed the health of individuals and populations, when delivered by well-organised services and funded by a growing economy.

However, at the end of this second revolution, we’re facing significant challenges, with rising demand and no parallel increase in finance.

Furthermore, we know that increases in life expectancy are stalling and that the gap in life expectancy between the wealthiest and most deprived subsections of society remains stubbornly wide.

Another challenge we face is population ageing, and there are great fears about the impact of this on individuals, their families, health and social care services and the economic wealth of nations.

However recent research has demonstrated that this fear is not based on evidence and that in fact disability, dementia and frailty can be prevented or delayed, providing we embrace the third healthcare revolution – the Activity Revolution.

COMBATTING THE NEW EPIDEMIC
Inactivity is a modern epidemic. Our bodies have evolved to be active, but we now live in an environment dominated by the car, the computer and the desk job.

Just as the clean water revolution required environmental and social change and also political support, so too does the third revolution. It’s now recognised that inactivity is a major preventable cause of our modern epidemics, where cancer, heart disease and type II diabetes have replaced cholera and typhoid.

Furthermore, we now know not only that activity can prevent many common diseases, but also that it can transform their treatment. It is – in the words of the Academy Medical Royal Colleges – “the miracle cure” and it’s been agreed that the NHS needs to promote activity therapy alongside drug therapy, operative therapy and psychological therapy.

THIRD healthcare revolution
Unlike the second healthcare revolution, activity therapy will not just be delivered by major hospitals and health centres. It will also harness the power of what has been called the third industrial revolution – namely citizens’ knowledge and the internet.

The real key to it is knowledge, and it’s clear that the public and many health service professionals are ignorant or muddled about the effects of ageing, loss of fitness and disease, and the great potential for prevention and treatment.

the impact of ageing
Ageing by itself isn’t a major cause of problems until people reach their mid-90s. It’s a normal biological process that reduces ability and resilience – namely the ability to respond to challenges. However, many people believe that the loss of physical capacity they experience from their 20s onwards is due to ageing, whereas it’s actually due to the modern epidemic – loss of fitness due to inactivity.

For most people, maximum ability starts to decline from their early 20s – usually when they get their first sitting job and car. A fitness gap then starts to open up between the best possible rate of decline and the actual rate of decline in their physical abilities and capacity.

For this reason loss of fitness and ageing are often confused. The picture becomes more complicated when disease occurs.

The impact of disease on fitness
About 40 per cent of 40-year-olds have one long term condition and a proportion have more than one. The proportion of people with long-term conditions then increases by approximately 10 per cent every decade.

However, this increase in disease is not only because of ageing but also as a result of being exposed to risks that are either environmental, social or personal, such as bad diet and sedentary behaviour.

What’s also emerging is the way loss of fitness complicates disease and accelerates increases in the fitness gap, in part because of the direct effect of that disease and the response to it in terms of treatment.

For example, the direct effect of a heart attack is on heart muscle, but it also increases risk for social reasons because other people, including professional carers and family, can assume that the onset of disease indicates the need for more “care” and less activity – whereas, scientifically, the opposite is what’s required.

This means negative beliefs and pessimistic attitudes towards health are the key factors complicating disease and loss of fitness, and these four factors relate – as shown in the diagram on the right.

Prescribing activity therapy
Of the 15 million people with long-term health conditions in the UK, about three million receive rehabilitation from highly skilled professionals. However, the remaining 13 million are simply given a pill, or a psychological intervention or some combination of the two.

What’s clear now is that all these people need activity therapy. Sometimes the activity therapy can replace the pill or psychological treatment, but often the two or three should be provided simultaneously.

Activity should be prescribed like a drug, not simply as an instruction, but as part of a process of information-giving, encouragement, facilitation and support.

We need to make use of the billions of interactions that people with long-term conditions have with doctors and nurses, health service staff and pharmacies, to keep nudging and encouraging them – but we also clearly need the full energy and skill of the fitness industry to swing in behind this drive to improve the health of the nation.

The fitness industry mostly sees people who want to reduce their risk of disease through activity, but it’s also starting to reach out to people who are living with long-term health conditions.

The launch of the new Universal Personalised Care initiative comes with the proposal to appoint 1,000 link workers whose responsibility it is to find therapeutic opportunities in addition to those provided by pharmacies, hospitals and mental health services.

This offers the best opportunity we’ve had so far to link the NHS and the fitness world in a single therapeutic alliance and we must work towards this goal with all possible haste to deliver on the Third Healthcare Revolution.

Sign up here to get Fit Tech's weekly ezine and every issue of Fit Tech magazine free on digital.
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features

Strategy: Prescribing activity

Linking fitness professionals to the NHS

Published in Health Club Management 2019 issue 2

There have been two revolutions in healthcare. The first in the 19th Century was the Public Health Revolution in which large-scale engineering of sewers and water systems – enabled by stable government and growing wealth – reduced mortality from the great epidemics that ravaged Europe.

The most feared were cholera and typhoid – and then came the clean water revolution as a solution.

The last 50 years have seen the second wave of change, the High Tech Revolution, in which developments such as MRI, transplantation, chemotherapy and joint replacement have transformed the health of individuals and populations, when delivered by well-organised services and funded by a growing economy.

However, at the end of this second revolution, we’re facing significant challenges, with rising demand and no parallel increase in finance.

Furthermore, we know that increases in life expectancy are stalling and that the gap in life expectancy between the wealthiest and most deprived subsections of society remains stubbornly wide.

Another challenge we face is population ageing, and there are great fears about the impact of this on individuals, their families, health and social care services and the economic wealth of nations.

However recent research has demonstrated that this fear is not based on evidence and that in fact disability, dementia and frailty can be prevented or delayed, providing we embrace the third healthcare revolution – the Activity Revolution.

COMBATTING THE NEW EPIDEMIC
Inactivity is a modern epidemic. Our bodies have evolved to be active, but we now live in an environment dominated by the car, the computer and the desk job.

Just as the clean water revolution required environmental and social change and also political support, so too does the third revolution. It’s now recognised that inactivity is a major preventable cause of our modern epidemics, where cancer, heart disease and type II diabetes have replaced cholera and typhoid.

Furthermore, we now know not only that activity can prevent many common diseases, but also that it can transform their treatment. It is – in the words of the Academy Medical Royal Colleges – “the miracle cure” and it’s been agreed that the NHS needs to promote activity therapy alongside drug therapy, operative therapy and psychological therapy.

THIRD healthcare revolution
Unlike the second healthcare revolution, activity therapy will not just be delivered by major hospitals and health centres. It will also harness the power of what has been called the third industrial revolution – namely citizens’ knowledge and the internet.

The real key to it is knowledge, and it’s clear that the public and many health service professionals are ignorant or muddled about the effects of ageing, loss of fitness and disease, and the great potential for prevention and treatment.

the impact of ageing
Ageing by itself isn’t a major cause of problems until people reach their mid-90s. It’s a normal biological process that reduces ability and resilience – namely the ability to respond to challenges. However, many people believe that the loss of physical capacity they experience from their 20s onwards is due to ageing, whereas it’s actually due to the modern epidemic – loss of fitness due to inactivity.

For most people, maximum ability starts to decline from their early 20s – usually when they get their first sitting job and car. A fitness gap then starts to open up between the best possible rate of decline and the actual rate of decline in their physical abilities and capacity.

For this reason loss of fitness and ageing are often confused. The picture becomes more complicated when disease occurs.

The impact of disease on fitness
About 40 per cent of 40-year-olds have one long term condition and a proportion have more than one. The proportion of people with long-term conditions then increases by approximately 10 per cent every decade.

However, this increase in disease is not only because of ageing but also as a result of being exposed to risks that are either environmental, social or personal, such as bad diet and sedentary behaviour.

What’s also emerging is the way loss of fitness complicates disease and accelerates increases in the fitness gap, in part because of the direct effect of that disease and the response to it in terms of treatment.

For example, the direct effect of a heart attack is on heart muscle, but it also increases risk for social reasons because other people, including professional carers and family, can assume that the onset of disease indicates the need for more “care” and less activity – whereas, scientifically, the opposite is what’s required.

This means negative beliefs and pessimistic attitudes towards health are the key factors complicating disease and loss of fitness, and these four factors relate – as shown in the diagram on the right.

Prescribing activity therapy
Of the 15 million people with long-term health conditions in the UK, about three million receive rehabilitation from highly skilled professionals. However, the remaining 13 million are simply given a pill, or a psychological intervention or some combination of the two.

What’s clear now is that all these people need activity therapy. Sometimes the activity therapy can replace the pill or psychological treatment, but often the two or three should be provided simultaneously.

Activity should be prescribed like a drug, not simply as an instruction, but as part of a process of information-giving, encouragement, facilitation and support.

We need to make use of the billions of interactions that people with long-term conditions have with doctors and nurses, health service staff and pharmacies, to keep nudging and encouraging them – but we also clearly need the full energy and skill of the fitness industry to swing in behind this drive to improve the health of the nation.

The fitness industry mostly sees people who want to reduce their risk of disease through activity, but it’s also starting to reach out to people who are living with long-term health conditions.

The launch of the new Universal Personalised Care initiative comes with the proposal to appoint 1,000 link workers whose responsibility it is to find therapeutic opportunities in addition to those provided by pharmacies, hospitals and mental health services.

This offers the best opportunity we’ve had so far to link the NHS and the fitness world in a single therapeutic alliance and we must work towards this goal with all possible haste to deliver on the Third Healthcare Revolution.

Sign up here to get Fit Tech's weekly ezine and every issue of Fit Tech magazine free on digital.
Gallery
More features
Editor's letter

Into the fitaverse

Fitness is already among the top three markets in the metaverse, with new technology and partnerships driving real growth and consumer engagement that looks likely to spill over into health clubs, gyms and studios
Fit Tech people

Ali Jawad

Paralympic powerlifter and founder, Accessercise
Users can easily identify which facilities in the UK are accessible to the disabled community
Fit Tech people

Hannes Sjöblad

MD, DSruptive
We want to give our users an implantable tool that allows them to collect their health data at any time and in any setting
Fit Tech people

Jamie Buck

Co-founder, Active in Time
We created a solution called AiT Voice, which turns digital data into a spoken audio timetable that connects to phone systems
Profile

Fahad Alhagbani: reinventing fitness

Alexa can help you book classes, check trainers’ bios and schedules, find out opening times, and a host of other information
Opinion

Building on the blockchain

For small sports teams looking to compete with giants, blockchain can be a secret weapon explains Lars Rensing, CEO of Protokol
Innovation

Bold move

We ended up raising US$7m in venture capital from incredible investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Primetime Partners, and GingerBread Capital
App analysis

Check your form

Sency’s motion analysis technology is allowing users to check their technique as they exercise. Co-founder and CEO Gal Rotman explains how
Profile

New reality

Sam Cole, CEO of FitXR, talks to Fit Tech about taking digital workouts to the next level, with an immersive, virtual reality fitness club
Profile

Sohail Rashid

35 million people a week participate in strength training. We want Brawn to help this audience achieve their goals
Ageing

Reverse Ageing

Many apps help people track their health, but Humanity founders Peter Ward and Michael Geer have put the focus on ageing, to help users to see the direct repercussions of their habits. They talk to Steph Eaves
App analysis

Going hybrid

Workout Anytime created its app in partnership with Virtuagym. Workout Anytime’s Greg Maurer and Virtuagym’s Hugo Braam explain the process behind its creation
Research

Physical activity monitors boost activity levels

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have conducted a meta analysis of all relevant research and found that the body of evidence shows an impact
Editor's letter

Two-way coaching

Content providers have been hugely active in the fit tech market since the start of the pandemic. We expect the industry to move on from delivering these services on a ‘broadcast-only’ basis as two-way coaching becomes the new USP
Fit Tech People

Laurent Petit

Co-founder, Active Giving
The future of sports and fitness are dependent on the climate. Our goal is to positively influence the future of our planet by instilling a global vision of wellbeing and a sense of collective action
Fit Tech People

Adam Zeitsiff

CEO, Intelivideo
We don’t just create the technology and bail – we support our clients’ ongoing hybridisation efforts
Fit Tech People

Anantharaman Pattabiraman

CEO and co-founder, Auro
When you’re undertaking fitness activities, unless you’re on a stationary bike, in most cases it’s not safe or necessary to be tied to a screen, especially a small screen
Fit Tech People

Mike Hansen

Managing partner, Endorphinz
We noticed a big gap in the market – customers needed better insights but also recommendations on what to do, whether that be customer acquisition, content creation, marketing and more
More features