Showing papers on "Lifestyle medicine published in 2010"

Physician competencies for prescribing lifestyle medicine.

Abstract: THE LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH FOR ADULTS IN THE United States are related to lifestyle—tobacco use, poor diet, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol consumption. US residents with these risk factors have plenty of room for improvement—including those who are asymptomatic and those living with chronic disease. Health behaviors could greatly influence future health and well-being, especially among patients with chronic disease. However, only 11% of patients with diabetes follow accepted dietary recommendations for saturated fat intake, and 18% of patients with heart disease continue to smoke, barely better than the general population’s smoking rate. The enormous potential effects of health behavior change on mortality, morbidity, and health care costs provide ample motivation for the concept of lifestyle medicine, ie, evidencebased practice of assisting individuals and families to adopt and sustain behaviors that can improve health and quality of life. Examples of target patient behaviors include, but are not limited to, eliminating tobacco use, improving diet, increasing physical activity, and moderating alcohol consumption. Effectively motivating patients to change behavior can be a frustrating and difficult challenge. Merely encouraging patients at the end of an office visit to attempt such changes yields limited results. Success requires the development of specific healthy lifestyle action plans in partnership with patients and intentional follow-up in subsequent visits. For example, one study showed that when physicians provided structured counseling to sedentary adult patients, followed by a health educator booster call, the total length of the weekly walking exercises increased by 5 times that of patients in the control group who received standard care. Even though the most widely accepted, well-established chronic disease practice guidelines uniformly call for lifestyle change as the first line of therapy, physicians often do not follow these recommendations. For instance, obese patients are advised to lose weight only 36% of the time during regular examinations, a proportion that improves only slightly to 52% if a patient already has obesity-related comorbidities. Furthermore, only 28% of smokers reported that health care professionals had offered them assistance to quit smoking in the past year. Findings such as these reveal 2 important facts: Physicians cannot ascribe the entire responsibility for inadequate lifestyle changes to their patients, and clinicians must accept some responsibility for deficiencies in the quality of health care. Acknowledging the crucial role of environmental and community factors in creating and sustaining inappropriate health behaviors does not eliminate the duty of physicians to assist patients in making health behavior changes. Physicians also have cited inadequate confidence and lack of knowledge and skill as major barriers to counseling patients about lifestyle interventions. Among the 620 respondents in a survey of family physicians, only 49% felt competent prescribing weight loss programs for obese patients. Even though changing unhealthy behaviors is foundational to medical care, disease prevention, and health promotion, a physician’s trusted relationship with the patient must be augmented whenever possible by family support, an interdisciplinary health care team, and community organizations and agencies (BOX). To begin to address the identified gap in physicians’ armamentaria, a group of representatives from primary care medical specialties and other interested medical professional societies met and developed suggested lifestyle medicine competencies for primary care physicians. Further work continues in developing curricula, training materials, evaluation, and system-based practice tools and performance measures to help physicians achieve these goals. Although these suggested competencies were developed largely to guide continuing medical education activities for primary care and preventive care physicians, many of these individual competencies have relevance for all spe-

Lifestyle drugs: Concept and impact on society

Abstract: Lifestyle has changed from being an indicator of the overall well being of an individual to a cause of disease and now "lifestyle" has itself become an object of medical attention. Alcohol has been used enormously as one of the oldest 'lifestyle' drugs, and currently sildenafil citrate (Viagra), the drug of choice for erectile dysfunction, exemplifies a turning point in the era of modern lifestyle drugs. This drug has transformed the lifestyles of millions and greatly increased the revenue of many pharmaceutical companies. With the Indian economy growing rapidly at an annual rate of 8-9%, a new era of drug discovery and development coupled with an enormous increase in the marketing of new drugs is being seen. This has certainly made the Indian public vulnerable to issues related to lifestyle drugs. There is a need to study this concept deeply and the impact of these drugs on Indian society, particularly since this topic has already been the centre of many discussions in other developed nations.

A Lifestyle Medicine Clinic in a Community Pharmacy Setting

Abstract: Chronic diseases continue to be a significant burden to the health care system. Pharmacists have been able to show that drug therapy for patients with chronic diseases can be improved through medication therapy management (MTM) services but have yet to become significantly involved in implementing lifestyle modification programs to further control and prevent chronic conditions. A novel and innovative lifestyle medicine program was started by pharmacists in a community pharmacy in 2008 to more comprehensively prevent and manage chronic conditions. The lifestyle medicine program consists of designing seven personalized programs for patients to address physical activity, nutrition, alcohol consumption, weight control, stress management, sleep success, and tobacco cessation (if needed). The lifestyle medicine program complements existing MTM services for patients with hypertension, dyslipidemia, and/or diabetes. This program is innovative because pharmacists have developed and implemented a method to combine lifestyle medicine with MTM services to not only manage chronic conditions, but prevent the progression of those conditions and others. Several innovative tools have also been developed to enhance the effectiveness of a lifestyle medicine program. This manuscript describes the program's pharmacy setting, pharmacy personnel, participants and program details as well as the tools used to integrate a lifestyle medicine program with MTM services. Type: Clinical Experience

Injuries: An Underrecognized Lifestyle Problem

Abstract: This article introduces the field of injury prevention and control and its relationship to lifestyle medicine. A review of injury epidemiology, definitions, intervention approaches, and the importance of injury as a public health problem are discussed. Injuries are a large, predictable, and preventable national and international problem affecting individuals, families, and communities. Behavioral, environmental, and technological solutions are necessary to reduce or eliminate injuries. Reductions in injuries and their costs to patients and their families are possible but will need support, collaboration, and partnering from policy makers, clinicians, and health care practitioners. Lifestyle medicine and primary care family practitioners are important allies in encouraging lifestyle choices that reduce injuries and in advocating for medical and public health policies related to injury prevention. Injuries should be added to the broad range of conditions resulting from lifestyle choices, and primary caregiv...

Lifestyle and general medicines: A study of promotional-mix strategies in India:

Abstract: An empirical analysis has been carried out to identify the relative importance of promotional tools for prescription drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. Promotional-mix strategies have been class...

The Ambulatist: A Health Care Professional Specializing in Lifestyle Medicine for Chronic Disease Care Coordination

Abstract: Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity pose a significant burden on the US health care system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 70% of Ameri...

Medication Adherence and Its Connection With Depression and Lifestyle Medicine

Abstract: Depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States. Research has shown that exercise can improve the symptoms associated with depression, in part by influencing many of the same chemicals that antidepressants do, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Medication adherence research shows that patients who are depressed are less likely than nondepressed patients to adhere to their drug therapy, even for medications that are not related to depression. It is presumable, then, that patients with depression may have difficulty adhering to their healthy lifestyle behaviors as well. The purpose of this article is to discuss medication adherence and its possible effects on the management of depression and lifestyle medicine activities as well as the role that pharmacists have in adherence to lifestyle medicine activities.

Combining Lifestyle Medicine With Medication Therapy Management Services in a Community Pharmacy Setting

Abstract: Medication therapy management (MTM) services have been performed by pharmacists to optimize the therapeutic outcomes of patients for nearly 10 years. To date, few pharmacists have incorporated lifestyle medicine practices with traditional MTM services to more optimally manage and prevent chronic conditions. This article describes one community pharmacy-based program that incorporates lifestyle medicine with traditional MTM services. The tools used to conduct the program are also provided along with a brief description of the outcomes after the first year of the program. Pharmacists are well positioned within the community to promote lifestyle medicine. Incorporating these services into MTM programs is an excellent way for pharmacists to provide a high level of care to patients with chronic conditions.