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A NEW prescription for exercise is helping those with chronic conditions.

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A NEW prescription for exercise is helping those with chronic conditions.

Stephen Stone sees exercise as medicine that can be prescribed for a range of conditions, from heart and lung disease to mental illness.

Stone is the physical lead in Tasmania’s Royal Flying Doctor Service Primary Health Care Program, a free program that delivers services for people living with chronic health conditions in the local government areas of George Town, Dorset, Flinders Island, Break O’Day and Glamorgan Spring Bay.

The RFDS has pioneered a new exercise and education program, Prime Mover, that helps people who are recovering from or are at risk of heart and lung conditions to self-manage their health and wellbeing.

As part of the program, people who have had chest pain, heart attacks, heart surgery or other heart conditions, along with long-term lung conditions such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis and asthma, take part in 12 weeks of targeted exercise and education sessions. Stone says the program is about helping people achieve a better quality of life.

“We encourage people to set smart goals that can be reasonably attained, such as reducing soft drink intake or walking for 30 minutes instead of 10 minutes,” Stone says. “It’s about people looking at their lifestyle to work out a plan and look at how we can do that together.”

Participants download a health app to their phones to remind them how to do exercises, track and report back on their progress.

Stone is passionate about the importance of exercise when it comes to overall health, particularly for people living in rural and remote Australia.

“For me, exercise is like a form of medication – we know that it can cause glucose levels in the blood to drop, increase bone density, lower cholesterol and more. So it needs to be prescribed like a medicine, and people need to stick to their dosages correctly,” he says.

Primary Health Care manager Nicole Grose says there is a growing awareness of the link between mental and physical health.

“Poor physical health can negatively impact on someone’s mental health, and vice versa,” she says. “Often, people experience anxiety and depression as a direct result of physical limitations associated with living with chronic health conditions.

“As RFDS founder Reverend John Flynn once said, ‘The mind and body are integrated and inseparable’.”

Grose says regional and remote Australians access mental health care at just one fifth of the rate of their city-based counterparts. They see doctors half as often and medical specialists at a third of the rate of metropolitan Australians.

In a bid to address this, the RFDS in Tasmania is currently expanding its primary health care outreach programs for rural and regional areas of the country.

Under the program, supported by Primary Health Tasmania under the Australian Government’s Primary Health Networks initiative, the RFDS supports people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, mental illness and dementia.

“Our health workers visit eligible clients in their homes, local medical centres or a place that is convenient to them,” Grose says. “Services are delivered by rural, mental and physical health workers who are based locally in each community. Our model is helping bridge the gap between rural and regional areas of Tasmania.”

And, while it is too early to report back on the Prime Mover program, the results look promising.

“As well as seeing reductions in girth measurements and blood pressure, we’re seeing better psychological outcomes as well,” Stone says. “Because while it’s good to see those numbers coming down, it’s about feeling good, having more energy, more sparkle and zeal. Those are the things that really matter.”

After barely walking out of hospital, Trevor is now walking back to fitness

Every morning, Christine and Trevor Reedman go for a walk before breakfast. The semi-retired couple from Ringarooma in north-east Tasmania have embraced a healthier lifestyle thanks to the RFDS Tasmania’s Prime Mover program. They were among the first to sign up to the program when it kicked off in January after a major health scare nearly claimed Trevor’s life.

Trevor, 61, had been living with chronic rheumatoid arthritis and haemochromatosis, a blood disorder in which the body cannot process iron, and went to hospital in May last year to have a knee replacement.

Two days after the operation, Christine says, things “went pear-shaped”. “The physio tried to get him up out of bed to start moving his knee,” she says. “Trevor managed to stand up with my help, and then collapsed against me and fell on the bed.”

Because Trevor had blood clots in his lungs, he couldn’t breathe and his heart stopped.

“They worked on him for six minutes and brought him back,” Christine says. “Then they took him to the Intensive Care Unit and put him on life support. For three days, they told me that no one survives what he has gone through, and to prepare for the worst.”

Trevor’s four-day visit to hospital turned into four weeks, during which he had three heart attacks, double pneumonia, a frozen bowel, an angiogram (X-ray) that revealed two blocked arteries, and three stents put in to keep blood flowing to his heart. When he finally walked out of hospital, staff shook his hand and congratulated him.

“They said he was a miracle,” Christine says. “He’ll be on blood thinners now for the rest of his life, but he’s alive, and we’re so grateful for that.”

Trevor’s GP referred the Reedmans to the RFDS’ Prime Mover Program, designed for rural Tasmanians with stable heart and lung conditions. As part of the program, a group meets once a week at Scottsdale’s new gym, 30 minutes’ drive from Ringarooma. Group leader Harriet teaches specific exercises to help increase lung capacity, build muscle strength, improve diet and control weight.

“She is so wonderful – you might do one extra thing and she’s so ecstatic about it, which makes everybody feel good, and it makes you want to keep going,” Christine says. “She explains everything and anything, and she says ,'Come and talk to me if you need to'.”

As well as cutting back on portion sizes, Trevor and Christine have become regular walkers to improve heart and lung capacity, and they use elastics at home to build muscle strength.

“It’s made the world of difference to Trevor; he’s had trouble with arthritis in his toes, feet, elbows, shoulder, but he is feeling better,” Christine says. "You feel like it’s worthwhile going and you feel good, too.”

Originally published as Prime time for health and care