Individually Adapted, Written Prescription of Physical Activity – FaR®

2012-01-23

There is strong scientific evidence that physical activity promotes health and can be used to both prevent and treat many widespread diseases. Physical activity has multifactorial effects, meaning that it affects many systems in the body at the same time and can thereby influence both physical and mental health.

“Individually Adapted, Written Prescription of Physical Activity – FaR®” is a textbook about physical activity on prescription (FaR), a method for promoting physical activity through the healthcare services. This is the first textbook in the area and the aim of the book is to provide an overall view of FaR. It also aims to support the implementation of the FaR method. The FaR textbook and the knowledge bank “Physical Activity in the Prevention and Treatment of Disease” (FYSS) are important complements to each other. The textbook focuses on why and how the FaR method is used and implemented. FYSS forms the foundation of how and why physical activity can be used in the prevention and treatment of some 30 diseases (www.fyss.se).

This textbook constitutes the main results of a government assignment to the Swedish National Institute of Public Health (SNIPH) to “prepare educational material regarding the physical activity on prescription method”. Supplemental materials are available on the SNIPH website (www.fhi.se/far).

Many of the key stakeholders in FaR have contributed to the material in various ways. The book has a broad target audience: students in programmes in healthcare, public health science or health pedagogy, physical education teachers, etc. The book is also addressed to professionals such as healthcare professionals that prescribe FaR or work with the implementation of the method, activity organisers who help individuals become physically active and public health planners who work with the structures to implement FaR. There are reading instructions to make it easier for the reader to find the information he or she is interested in.

To place FaR in a context, the textbook illustrates why it is important to promote physical activity in the population. It also defines what FaR is and what scientific evidence there is for the method. The book’s sections focused on practice also describe how FaR can be used in daily clinical practice and how cooperation can take place between different actors.