Daisybell
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...-give-rest-cure-its-marching-orders-792w52z38
Under the NHS-wide Moving Medicine project, due to begin on September 10, GPs, nurses and other health professional will be given scripts to help them persuade patients to change their behaviour.
The programme gives detailed guidance for 10 long-term conditions, such as diabetes, stroke, vascular heart disease, depression, dementia, arthritis and muscular-skeletal pain. Other patients will also be given advice.
Doctors will be given scripts for discussion, ranging from 30 seconds at the end of a consultation to a 20-minute session. Advice will deal with complaints from patients such as: “I already feel tired, and you want me to do more.” The suggested reply is: “Becoming more active is the most important treatment for persistent fatigue.”
Dr Natasha Jones, vice-president of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine, which has put together the programme, said: “The societal belief is that if you have pain, you should rest, if you are fatigued, you should stop. People who are ill are constantly told that by their relatives, their doctors, their nurses. You walk into hospital and they put you into bed. You walk into a surgery and they ask you to sit down.
“For the vast majority of patients it is safer to exercise than to sit on the sofa.”
Many doctors are reluctant to advise patients on exercise, either because they fear they may offend them by raising the subject or because the patient may overdo it, she said. Few learnt about suitable exercises during their medical training.
Under the NHS-wide Moving Medicine project, due to begin on September 10, GPs, nurses and other health professional will be given scripts to help them persuade patients to change their behaviour.
The programme gives detailed guidance for 10 long-term conditions, such as diabetes, stroke, vascular heart disease, depression, dementia, arthritis and muscular-skeletal pain. Other patients will also be given advice.
Doctors will be given scripts for discussion, ranging from 30 seconds at the end of a consultation to a 20-minute session. Advice will deal with complaints from patients such as: “I already feel tired, and you want me to do more.” The suggested reply is: “Becoming more active is the most important treatment for persistent fatigue.”
Dr Natasha Jones, vice-president of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine, which has put together the programme, said: “The societal belief is that if you have pain, you should rest, if you are fatigued, you should stop. People who are ill are constantly told that by their relatives, their doctors, their nurses. You walk into hospital and they put you into bed. You walk into a surgery and they ask you to sit down.
“For the vast majority of patients it is safer to exercise than to sit on the sofa.”
Many doctors are reluctant to advise patients on exercise, either because they fear they may offend them by raising the subject or because the patient may overdo it, she said. Few learnt about suitable exercises during their medical training.
