Physically active primary care physicians consult more on physical activity and exercise for patients: A public teaching-hospital study

Physical activity and exercise(PAE)improve quality of life and reduce the effects of chronic diseases.Primary care physicians(PCPs)play an important role to encourage PAE in patients.We aim to assess PCPs'current PAE consultation practices and their enablers/barriers in daily clinical practice.We had 64 PCPs(age[35.3±4.7]y,47 women)that completed self-administered questionnaires on PAE consultation practices,training,and confidence levels.PCPs(n=42)also completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form to assess their physical activity(PA)levels.We conducted correlation,one-way analysis of variance and a linear regression to assess the associations between enablers,barriers and PA levels to PAE consultation practices.On average,PCPs consulted on PAE in 49.7%of their daily clinical appointments.Majority of PCPs(70%)strongly agreed that more PAE knowledge were needed to increase consultation practices.Top three barriers related(p<0.001)to practices were lack of PAE education(r=0.47),patients’preference of pharmaceutical interventions(r=0.45)and lack of continuing education in PAE for PCPs(r=0.37).Physically active PCPs(health-enhancing PA levels,n=6)gave significantly more daily consultations in PAE,73.2%±21.9%,compared to inactive PCPs(n=13),37.4%22.8%(p=0.013).In our regression output,PCPs who had higher PA levels consulted more on PAE daily(R^(2)=0.38,p<0.001)while controlling for age.Conclusion,PCPs require more knowledge on PAE and need be physically active themselves to increase PAE consultation for patients in their daily practice.Medical education should consider including more PA and exercise topics that may benefit both physicians and their patients.

University Student Sleep Quality: Some Health Insights regarding Light Exposure

Young adult sleep quality is reported to be compromised in the literature with shortened sleep intervals, daytime napping, excessive daytime sleepiness and excessive wakeups. The description of young adult sleep quality commonly includes the rationale that the independent schedule of the young adults coupled with their preferred social schedule, work and academic schedules leaves the planning for sleep to last place. Despite mentation and memory reductions with sleep deprivation secondary to poor sleep quality documented in young adults, the poor sleep quality prevails. This study is focused on the elements of arousal during a young adult’s day that may predispose them to elevated activation and difficulty relaxing sufficiently to fall asleep. It was hypothesized that light exposure was elevated in young adults with poor sleep quality. Light exposure in terms of overhead bright lights in classrooms and laboratories of the academic environment, bright light in terms of video monitors/TVs/tablets/phone exposure is sufficiently stimulating to cause cognitive activation was light exposure.

Exercise as Component of Standard Diabetes Management, the Challenges to Improve Performance among Sudanese Type 2 Diabetes

Background: Exercise is important component of diabetes management. Regular exercise improves blood glucose, reduces hazard of cardiovascular diseases, decreases weight, increases insulin sensitivity and strengthens patients’ general health. Regular exercise can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes in those of high-risk populations. Although there are great benefits of regular exercise, unfortunately majority of people with type 2 diabetes are not active. Objectives: The main goal of this study was to assess patients adherence to regular exercise among type 2 diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) attending Ribat University Hospital Diabetic Clinic (RUHDC) Khartoum state, Sudan. Methods: Analytical cross sectional hospital based study was carried out among 351 patients from August 2012 to February 2013. Structured questionnaire and patients cards were used to collect data. Results: Out of 351 patients, female were 65.8% and male 34.2%. Patients older than 60 years 48.4%, illiterate 21.0%, only 44.2% had basic educational level, house wife 56.1% and retired 18.5%. Majority had irregular exercise program (80.1%), 12.1% specified lack of time whilst 87.9% did not specify any other reasons as barrier for regular exercise “no reason”. Daily activity was the main type of physical activity (59.8%). Although insignificant, irregular exercise was higher among female patients, their age above 60 years, patients had low education levels and those had financial problems. Conclusion: Regular exercise was low in this study. Lack of time, female, patients older than 60 years, had low education levels, and had financial problems, which were the main barriers of regular exercise. Family support, tailored patients’ education and reduction of patients’ use of technology and modern living can improve the patients’ activity.

Using Virtual Reality to Promote Physical Activity

The purpose of this research is to develop an immersive virtual fitness center as an intervention to promote physical activity and examine its impacts on users’ exercise plans and exercise behaviors. The virtual reality (VR)-based intervention includes three main features: enabling the users to control their avatar, personalizing the avatar to look the same as the user, and visualizing the positive consequences of exercising. We conducted an experiment to randomly assign participants to two treatment groups: experiencing either the self or another person losing weight because of exercising in the virtual environment. The findings demonstrated that the self-avatar group exercised more in the voluntary section than the other-avatar group. However, participants in the self-avatar condition perceived a lower level of sense of presence compared to participants in the other-avatar condition. Compared to people in the control condition who watched and followed the exercise from a workout video, those who exercised in the virtual fitness center, regardless of whether the avatar was based on the self’s image or another person’s image, planned to spend more time on exercising in the following week. Theoretical and practical implications for using VR technology to promote health-related behavioral change, and why personalization decreases perceived sense of presence in the virtual environment are discussed.