If you are a person suffering from hypertension, would you take medication for diabetes? Exercise too needs to be customised according to the ailment and other factors, explained Supriya Vinod, Principal, College of Physiotherapy, Mother Theresa Postgraduate and Research Institute of Health Sciences, to fellow medical practitioners.
She was speaking on ‘Exercise prescription for special population,’ a session of the continuing medical education programme conducted by St Joseph Hospital (Cluny) on Sunday.
She asked fellow medical practitioners to encourage their patients to exercise by prescribing a personalised exercise programme. The exercise schedule should be customised according to the ailment, the person’s heart rate, age and medication. “Give your patients the confidence by showing them authentic data to back the schedule you have prescribed,” she said.
Patients should be encouraged to maintain a health diary that records indicators such as blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio. Persons with hypertension can go for endurance training such as long walks and resistance training done with weights, while non-weight bearing exercises can be taken up by those with diabetes, she said. Swimming, cycling and chair exercises are also recommended for diabetics.
While persons with diabetes can go for morning walks, it is not advisable for heart patients and those with hypertension as their adrenaline levels are already high in the morning and exercise would aggravate the problem, said H. Ranganath, CEO, St Joseph Hospital (Cluny), who organised the programme.
Heart patients too can take up exercises after ‘conditioning’ the state where one does not feel strained to complete the exercise. Dr. Vinod also recommended group training for patients to ensure they are motivated.