Prescribing Exercise as Medicine

There is a medication that can be prescribed that can help prevent and treat many of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and even cancer. Plus this medication has shown potential for reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia along with helping individuals with depression and anxiety. This prescription is also extremely cheap and for most cases can even be free. This prescription exists yet it's severely underutilized in the health care system. So what is this magical medication? This amazing solution is exercise and physical activity. When we think of medicine we so often think of those orange bottles of pills prescribed by the doctor for individuals. Exercise however, could literally be considered medicine! Exercise has so many benefits fro an individual in terms of preventing disease and leading to a higher quality of life. Former Director at the National Institute on Aging Dr. Robert Butler has said, "If exercise could be packed in a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation."

The evidence is clearly there that shows how beneficial exercise and physical activity is in preventing many of the chronic health problems in our country, so why is it not being prescribed more? For most people they are simply told that they need to exercise to improve their health and sent on their way. Could you imagine if that is how it worked with medications? You would just be told to go to the pharmacy and pick out any medication without your doctor even figuring out which is best for you or giving you help to pick something out that will help. When people are simply told that they need to be more physically active that is essentially what is happening. Exercise is literally medicine and just like other prescriptions it needs to be tailored to the individual based on what will benefit them most. The Exercise is Medicine initiative was coordinated by the American College of Sports Medicine in collaboration with the American Medical Association to help health care providers and patients understand the physical activity guidelines, assess if people are meeting those guidelines, and providing resources to help individuals use exercise as medicine. To learn some more about Exercise is Medicine and find advice on becoming more physically active check out more on their website http://www.exerciseismedicine.org/support_page.php/about/. 

Exercise is packed with benefits for so many health conditions and the side effects are significantly lower than other medications. The research shows how much exercise does in disease prevention, but since it's impossible to pack all those benefits in a pill we need to help health care providers and the population learn that exercise is medicine and needs to be prescribed like one. As movement specialists physical therapists can play a valuable role once the health care system starts recognizing the magical medicine of exercise. It's time we start assessing physical activity as a vital sign just like heart rate and blood pressure and then treat with the same urgency that we would treat anything else. Ask yourself this question...if there was a single medication out there that had the ability to prevent many debilitating diseases, would you want to get your hands on it? The good news is that you already have access to it and all it takes is finding some exercise you enjoy and start doing it.