Describe measures that you would take as a nurse to assist clients with health promotion measures to incorporate exercise and physical activity into their lives
For the middle-aged adult, exercise can reduce the risk of various health problems. Choose two at-risk health issues that regular physical exercise and activity can help prevent and manage. Discuss the prevalence of each of these health problems in society today. Describe measures that you would take as a nurse to assist clients with health promotion measures to incorporate exercise and physical activity into their lives. Include the kind of activities you would recommend, the amount of exercise, and the approach you would use to gain cooperation from the client. Support your response with evidence-based literature.
Expert Answer and Explanation
Health Management through Physiotherapy
The contemporary clinical solutions to the health issues such as type-2 diabetes and coronary heart disease (CHD) rely on the physical exercise to advance the disease management and prevention objectives. According to the statistical estimates conducted in 2015, the United States (U.S.) had 30.3 million cases of diabetes mellitus (Bullard et al., 2018).
Because factors such as age and economic status predisposes one to the risk of contracting this disease, these cases are highly spread in older adults as well as in economically-disadvantaged populations. This is the same case with the CHD which predominantly affects older Americans (Sanchis-Gomar et al., 2016). Based on the 2016 statistical approximation, the disease affected 15.5 million Americans, aged 20 and above.
Another characteristics that is noticeable with the two diseases is their distribution with respect to the race and ethnicities. Minority populations’ risk of contracting either of these disease is higher than the risk in the white populations.
Considering the benefits associated with the physiotherapy, it is imperative that caregivers guide patients through the process of incorporating exercise into their. To realize this goal as a nurse, it is important to focus on educating the patient on certain aspects of the physical activities which can help them manage diabetes as well as CHD.
The first step in the educational process is to assess whether the patient practices any form of physical exercise, and follow this with explaining to the patient the benefit of this form of activity (Tuso, 2015). Encouraging the patient to actively participate in activities such as walking or doing light jogging every day of the week, for 30 minutes, is important to the health promotion.
If possible, involving the family members of the patient can be important in the sense that it helps provide the patient the support they need to adhere to the physiotherapy regimen. The involvement of the family can also help gain cooperation from the client.
References
Bullard, K. M., Cowie, C. C., Lessem, S. E., Saydah, S. H., Menke, A., Geiss, L. S., … Imperatore, G. (2018). Prevalence of Diagnosed Diabetes in Adults by Diabetes Type – United States, 2016. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 67(12), 359–361. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6712a2.