Chronic Disease management

General health:

• Weight loss: Exercise, and doing the right exercise, is an important step in losing weight. If patients have been exercising and not losing weight then they may benefit from seeing and AEP.

• Deconditioning: Sometimes after a bout of illness a patient may become deconditioned and exercise may help restore them to their best. Resistance bands are probably the best piece of equipment to this, are simple to use and not expensive for the patients.

Chronic disease management:

You may be on medication for some of the issues listed below but exercise can also help optimise these conditions and as a result a reduction of medication may be possible improving patient satisfaction.

• Hypertension: The right exercise over time reduces blood pressure.

• High cholesterol: Exercise can reduce LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol.

• Diabetes type II (and pre-diabetes): Exercise improves the body’s efficiency of using sugar by using different energy systems and increasing muscle mass which reduces excess sugar in the blood.

• Diabetes type I: Exercise improves how insulin works in the body.

• Heart disease such as bypass, stents, post heart attack: exercise has many benefits: it prevents the blood vessels from narrowing further, prevents blood clotting, helps deliver blood to the heart, and helps to maintain a normal heart rhythm. These changes reduce the load on the heart at rest and during exercise.

• Heart Failure: Exercise is very important in the management of heart failure. It improves: functional exercise capacity, independence and function, breathlessness and reverses the peripheral adaptations that occur by improving aerobic capacity.

• COPD: Regular exercise creates benefits in physical conditioning and functional capacity, giving individuals with COPD better ability to participate in recreational or lifestyle activities, thus enhancing quality of life.

​Mental health management:

• Depression and/or anxiety: Exercise can optimise depression and anxiety as effectively as medications and behavioural therapy.