Getting active is what the doctor ordered for some 14 Leduc area residents part of the Prescription to Get Active program.
The city program has been running since October 2011 and has seen residents of all ages prescribed to the program by local doctors. In partnership with the Leduc Beaumont Devon Primary Care Network (PCN), 50 local physicians have been issuing doctor prescriptions for a complimentary one-month pass to the Leduc Recreation Centre (LRC) or Beaumont’s S&D Aqua-fit Centre.
Facility officials said although it has only been four months since the program started, there have been some great results.
“I think it is a tremendous opportunity for locals and regional people to get involved and get active. It’s not just at the LRC, but it encourages people to get active in their lifestyles for better health,” said Roger Smolnicky, director of the Leduc facility.
Getting people active is a need seen across the country, with only 15 per cent of all Canadian adults getting their 150 minutes of moderate-to vigorous physical activity each week, according to data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS). The number of Canadian children getting their one-hour of daily physical exercise is even lower, explained the survey, which revealed only seven per cent of children aged 5 to 17 as being active.
According to program officials, the local physical activity course is a unique one in Alberta and may be the only one in the country.
There are plans to take the program one step further, with a research team already established to look at the effectiveness of the program in reducing the number of medical prescriptions handed out by doctors.
“We’re hoping to do a research project to look at the perspective for cost benefit analysis of how much of an impact we’re saving on the medical side of the equation. The medical costs can be quite exuberant for an individual so if a person has less visits to a doctor, how much will that save the medical profession,” said Smolnicky, adding there is interest from researchers at the University of Alberta and other organizations in the research project but no set date has been established yet.
The program was scheduled to finish by this summer, but LRC staff said its success has given it an open-ended completion date, with more people expected to start the program in the future.
“The program has been a tremendous success, which is pretty exciting,” said Smolnicky.
Writen by Stephanie Dubois
Printed in Leduc Representative January 20, 2011