Witsies, your Journey to Health starts here!
- Wits University
Every journey begins with a single step. Take your first towards improved health and fitness today, with a specially-for-Witsies easy, free referral system.
The case for physical activity
Physical activity has been proven to reduce all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality risk.
In addition, regular exercise can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, some cancers (including breast, colorectal and prostate), depression, and heart disease (by at least 30%) and can improve quality of life.
Reductions in dementia, as well as a delay in cognitive decline that is associated with ageing, are also well described.
Additional benefits of regular physical activity to the elderly include a reduction in the incidence of falls, and improvements in physical function in older adults with or without fragility.
Lastly, reduced feelings of anxiety and a lower incidence of depression have been reported as outcomes of regular physical activity.
With all that scientific evidence that exercise is medicine, why wouldn’t you want to get moving more for improved wellbeing and enhanced health span?
Vital signs
Assessing the level of physical activity as a vital sign should be part of all clinical and health assessments.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has set a recommended level of physical activity for health benefits, in the form of a simple questionnaire.
This allows your level of physical activity to be determined, which then enables referral to health professionals on campus who will contact you and collaborate with you on a journey to healthier levels.
The also determines the safety of your participating in an exercise programme.
Take your first step
Complete the , and if your levels are below the WHO recommended amount, a biokineticist from the Department of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (DESSM) at Wits will contact you to discuss individualised options for you.
This vital sign measurement has been integrated across many Wits University units and departments including, Screening and Testing Programme for Pharmacy Students (STEPPS), Office of Student Success, Campus Health, Counselling and Careers Development Unit, the Disability Rights Unit, Life and Life Health Solutions, so that reach-and-referral is optimised.
Note that DESSM recognises individuals with disabilities who use mobility-assistive equipment in their exercise programmes.
Completion of the is voluntary, and you do not need to answer any questions you do not want to.
It will take approximately 5 minutes to complete the . The information will handled as confidential and it will only be used to contact you regarding health services.
第一吃瓜网 Journey to Health
Dr Ané Orchard, Senior Lecturer in , leads on Wits’ Journey to Health, and the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology’s STEPPS programme.
“Journey to Health started because there’s a gap between doctors prescribing exercise and the exercise happening. Journey to Health aims to plug this gap,” she says.
The vital signs sits on Red Cap, which calculates physical exercise vital signs based on research by Exercise is Medicine™.
“The relevant University units have worked together on Journey to Health, and it took a year for us to be satisfied with the questionnaire,” says Orchard. “When Witsies complete the form, that data comes back to us and, if it shows less than the WHO-recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week, that data is red-flagged, and we will contact that Witsie to discuss options.”
Completion of the questionnaire and the follow-up call are free services to Witsies, although subsequent prescribed specialist interventions may incur costs for the individual’s account.
Journey to Health launched on 1 April and will run as a pilot for six months, followed by data analysis.
Professor Georgia Torres, Head of DESSM and COO of the Brian and Dorothy Zylstra , which houses DESSM and Journey to Health, says: “We’re trying to get Witsies who are lacking physical exercise on board with Journey to Health to prevent things happening to them, and staff with chronic disease, so we can get them into a programme.”