Exercise is Medicine™ Month 2009 kicks off in just one month! Here are a few simple things you can do today:
The goal of the Exercise is Medicine™ program is to encourage physicians to record physical activity as a vital sign during patient visits. Your role as a fitness professional is integral to the program, particularly to help patients understand the preventive and curative value of exercise.
Connecting physicians and health and fitness professionals is an important component of this program. These tools will provide ideas and opportunities to best relate to and start working with physicians. The fitness professional's tooklit provides sample letters you can use to introduce yourself to physicians, sample flyers for physicians to quickly refer their patients, and other valuable resources.
Also, here you will find patient education materials to teach clients how to exercise safely with their health status or specific diagnosis.
Join us in celebrating health and fitness in May for Exercise is Medicine™ Month. There are plenty of ways you can participate, but here a few that may be easy to do with your clients and in your community. Tell us your story if you plan to participate in other ways.
1. Share information about Exercise is Medicine™ with your clients. Encourage them to visit this site for more information and talk to their health care provider about exercise/physical activity.
2. Provide 10 free exercise consultations to patients of local physicians. Make sure you report your progress back to the referring physician. Learn more about effectively working with health care providers through the Exercise is Medicine™ fitness professional's toolkit.
3. Send your past clients information about the Exercise is Medicine™ initiative. Some may want to “re-up” with you!
4. Connect with local service groups and offer a presentation on the value of exercise in the prevention and treatment of disease.
5. Organize a neighborhood walk with Exercise is Medicine™ as the theme. Share the program information with your participants and encourage them to share it with their friends.
Please submit your client and community promotion ideas to EIM@acsm.org. As appropriate, we will add them to the list for our visitors to see.
Looking for a way to stay involved with Exercise is Medicine™? Help us out by requesting an Exercise is Medicine™ Month proclamation from your mayor or governor! Just download the proclamations, personalize the sample request letter and contact your local mayor or state governor. Questions? Need help locating contact information? E-mail us at eim@acsm.org or call 317-352-3818 for help.
Created by Dr. Robert Sallis during his tenure as president of the American College of Sports Medicine, Exercise is Medicine is a national initiative sponsored by ACSM to make physical activity assessment and exercise prescription a standard part of the disease prevention and treatment paradigm for all patients.
In this DVD program Dr. Sallis presents the concepts, data, and tools that define this groundbreaking program, as well as a description of the extensive nationwide support for Exercise is Medicine.
Click here to view a preview of this DVD, and order a full copy of the DVD here.
