Evidence for Exercise
On this page we will review how to use pedometers in clinical practice, look at writing exercise prescriptions, and then review other methods of encouraging patients to exercise.
Now that you have learned some about enhancing your patients ability to exercise, continue to the next section to read about nutrition's role in treating depression.
(r. Vore, Jogging, flickr. CC: BY SA 2.0. Obtained on June 21, 2009.)
Exercise has been shown as effective as medication in the treatment of depression and it presents fewer side effects (Blumenthal). An additional advantage of exercise is that it contributes to the control of chronic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, obesity). Unfortunately, physicians recommend exercise to fewer than half of their patients despite the fact that such recommendations increase the number of patients who actually start to exercise (Halm). These findings suggest that effective counseling may be as simple as making recommendations to exercise. Of course, not all patients are willing or able to get to the gym, and compliance with physician recommendations for exercise can be poor (Martin). To this end, pedometers are recognized as a particularly powerful method of engaging patients in an exercise program (Bravata).