Read the latest round up from the Physical Activity team
22 October 2024
Below you will find a round up of the latest news and releases from the Physical Activity team.
New resistance band exercise sheets launched
As part of the Let’s Move campaign, Versus Arthritis has recently launched brand new resistance band exercise sheets.
These complement the resistance band exercise video series hosted by fitness professional Leon Wormley and his Mum Janet. You can now pick between the follow along videos or illustrated printable PDFs, free to download from our website and share with patients to help them build strength at home using a resistance band.
Arthritis training ask – can you help?
We are on the lookout for healthcare professionals who are passionate about supporting the sport and leisure sector to encourage people with arthritis to be active.
The Physical Activity team at Versus Arthritis is working on developing training to improve the skills and knowledge of the Sport and Leisure Sector in order to do this.
We have already created some arthritis training which has been delivered as part of multiple physical activity projects. It was initially developed for fitness professionals to help them to have the skills and knowledge to be able to support people with arthritis to be active as part of our projects.
The training includes information about arthritis, treatment, keeping active with arthritis, what works well, a case study exercise and additional resources.
We would like to work on developing the training further, and we would like it to be accredited by CIMSPA and have CPD points attached to it. We are working with CIMSPA, The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity CIMSPA to develop and accredit the training.
Our next step for the project
One of the next stages is to find out more from the sector around what would be useful as part of a course like this.
We have collated some feedback from previous courses, but we would like to capture more feedback. This will mean bringing together more stakeholders including leisure providers, fitness professionals, wider sport and leisure sector teams and healthcare professionals who are keen to support and input into the work. We are looking to pull together a stakeholder group for this project to help to make some key decisions around the approach we take. There may also be other additional opportunities in the future, for example, trainer roles.
If you would be interested in finding out more then please email Ashleigh Ahlquist, Physical Activity Manager on a.ahlquist@versusarthritis.org.
New ‘Swimming as Medicine’ video launch with Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
The latest video in the ‘Swimming as Medicine’ series, which focuses on physiotherapy, has been launched by Swim England and supported by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP)
The aim of this video is to further highlight to physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals, just how powerful being active in water can be for individuals with complex health problems and rehabilitation needs.
The benefits of swimming and aquatic activity are numerous; being active in water is often recommended for people with a range of long-term health conditions, including arthritis or impairments for a number of reasons.
These include the buoyancy experienced in water, which helps to reduce the strain on painful joints, normally experienced from weight bearing activity.
As a whole, the Swimming as Medicine series has been created to encourage those healthcare professionals to consider recommending swimming and aquatic activity to their patients as an effective way of improving health and wellbeing.
This is the second video of the series and follows on from the initial launch, which was done alongside the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) and featured Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi and his patient, Darren Whitley.
Watch the second episode of the Swimming as Medicine series
Watch the second episode of the Swimming as Medicine series