Prevention and Health Promotion

Hello mates! Today we are going to talk about prevention and health promotion. This is a significant matter that has to concern us, as physiotherapists and healthcare professionals. That's why I am going to share with you something that I have been working on, it is a poster and a justification about it. It talks about falls prevention, an issue very important nowadays, due to the progressive ageing of the population. I hope you find it interesting and useful for your own work!

Exercises and fall prevention

It is well known that falls are a wide problem presented in elderly population (Age Concern, n.d.). Nevertheless, it is proved that there are multiple ways to prevent them by undertaking exercise programmes, like the OTAGO programme (Accident Compensation Corporation, 2003). This programme is based on the development of strengthening exercises, aerobic activity as well as balance training in order to prevent those falls. Therefore, the poster provided could be useful to reach the aim of that programme. Consequently, the distribution of the poster in bays where elderly patients are hospitalized would mean that the subjects could be able to see and be prompted to do their exercises. In order to analyse that, the contents of the presented poster are going to be critically discussed and justified in relation to the Health Belief Model.

Rosenstock, Stretcher and Becker (1988) report about the Health Belief Model that a change in a health-related condition is due to beliefs that the patients have about their behaviour. According to them, the presence of three different factors is necessary to undertake this change. They declare that the first of those factors is that the subjects need to feel an important motivation to make a relevant health-related action in order to change their behaviour. Therefore, it is possible to provide different messages to increase patient’s motivation. In the poster above messages as ‘It keeps you active to do what you like’ makes viewers think that if they keep active routinely it would provide them the benefit to do their leisure-time activities. Apart from this, the advice ‘It’s easy. You can do it from your chair!’ is another incentive to carry on with the exercises; consequently, the patients would change their conducts to reach a healthier condition. Finally, the fact that the poster provides with some pictures with healthy people undertaking the exercises could be another motivation to do them, because the patients would like to be as they are.

The second factor is that the subjects need to perceive a repeated negative behaviour as a potential risk to suffer a determinate illness or serious health problem. Consequently, the subjects would change this behaviour so as to avoid this health issue. The title of the poster above is an example of this statement. ‘Keep moving. Avoid falling!!’ shows a health problem widely spread in the elderly population as so are falls. The poster suggests doing some daily exercises, in order to maintain the muscle activity and, subsequently, prevent falls. Glanz, Rimer and Viswanath (2008) summarise the factor above in two different constructs. The first of them is called Perceived Susceptibility; this statement explains that the patients need to believe that the probability of experience a particular illness is elevated in order to change a specific lifestyle. The second one is labelled Perceived Severity; it states that the more serious is a health disorder, the easier would be to change a certain habit in a person. Glanz et. al. (2008) combined the two constructs above into one: Perceived Threat. In our case in particular, the threat would be falls.

Finally, the third factor that Rosenstock et. al. (1988) state is that the population need to believe that carrying out a concrete health recommendation would reduce the action of a certain unhealthy habit. Besides, the subjects have to feel that the change in their lifestyle would not require a high cost, not only economically, but socially, psychologically or medically. In the provided poster, it is seen some recommendation like ‘Walk is good for your health!’ and ‘Try your work out 3 times a day’. With them, the viewers remember their exercise programmes and would be able to see that it is not difficult for them to undertake the therapy. Glanz et. al. (2008) has called this construct Cues to Action; with it, information about how to undertake the behavioural change is provided as well as promotion awareness. In short, performances to stimulate “readiness” of the subjects are offered.

Sometimes, the subjects could find potentially negative to undertake a concrete health performance. Glanz et. al. (2008) named this fact as ‘Perceived Barriers’. With the Health Belief Model is possible to find barriers that may interfere with the required lifestyle change in elderly population. Those barriers are strongly related with common diseases that this population has propensity to suffer. The health issues could be depression, Alzheimer disease, short-term memory, dementia, visual impairments, pain, weakness or fear of falling. There are some performances that could decrease the action of those barriers. One of them is set in the poster above; the message is ‘Don’t forget your exercises!’ This message would facilitate the viewers to remember that they need to do their exercises. Other strategies would be liaising with patients’ relatives to explain to them the importance of being active and doing some aerobic exercises for the elderly. It would be beneficial also to explain the same to the patients so they could understand the benefits of it. Explaining to the patients how to undertake the exercises is another procedure to minimise the effect of the barriers; Glanz et. al. (2008) labelled this concept as ‘Self-efficacy'. Finally, another strategy to decrease the performance of the barriers would be that the patients realise that the advice that it is provided to them is actually taking effect. The subjects could see the effect on themselves or in another person.

In conclusion, the Health Belief Model hypothesized that people will not generally search for preventive care or health screening unless they possess minimal levels of relevant health motivation and knowledge, view themselves as potentially vulnerable and the condition as threatening, are convinced of the efficacy of intervention, and see few difficulties in undertaking the recommended action. With the poster above, this guideline has been followed in order to achieve a successful health prevention and promotion of a beneficial lifestyle for elderly people. 

Reference List

Age Concern. (n.d.). Stop Falling: Start Saving Lives and Money. Age Concern. Company Literature. 

Glanz, K., Rimer, B. K. & Viswanath, K. (2008) Health Behaviour and Health Education, Theory, Research, and Practice (4th ed.). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Otago Medical School. (March, 2003). OTAGO Exercise Programme. New Zealand: Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). 

Rosenstock, I., Stretcher, V. & Becker, M (1988). Social Learning Theory and the Health Belief Model. Health Education Quarterly, 15(2), 175-183.