Lifestyle Medicine is growing mainstream roots because of its broad application and strong medical research on both disease prevention & quality of life.

This chapter discusses the emerging role of Lifestyle Medicine and its financial implications for health care, business, and the individual.

Chapter Three explores the most recent research literature that supports the role of exercise and activity in health promotion. The need for baseline testing and the vital role of an “exercise prescription” accompanied by coaching and monitoring are discussed.

Research shows that the vast majority of chronic disease and related deaths in the US are directly correlated to lifestyle choices and behaviors. As the industry experts in exercise and physical activity, it is critical that physical therapists utilize their knowledge and position in the medical field to include lifestyle medicine components in their evaluation and treatment patterns.

Having a platform to stratify patients according to risk is key to the integration of lifestyle medicine into the physical therapy practice. A critical step of targeting high-risk patients is to identify them. This process will also assist in assessing the appropriateness of exercise initiation and progression.

The incidence of obesity is rapidly rising. Obesity is highly correlated with disease progression and chronic pain dysfunctions. In this chapter, statistics on obesity and sedentary lifestyle will be discussed and important metrics for evaluation of body composition will be presented.

The cardiovascular system is critical to consider when prescribing physical activity as a component of lifestyle medicine. Two key measures will be defined and their relation to exercise delivery addressed.

Dosing exercise is a necessary, but often overlooked, component in exercise prescription. A variety of measures are available to easily assign and measure exercise dosage in the clinical environment.

When available, blood profile analysis can be a useful addition to the vitals obtained during a physical evaluation. In this chapter, the participant will gain an understanding of these lab values and review how to use them to improve the overall health assessment of a patient.

There are specific lifestyle behaviors that are known to directly influence health. Several tools are available that can be easily included in your intake process to quantify current lifestyle risk.

PCMHs, ACOs, and the Triple Aim of the IHI will all be introduced as they relate to patient-centered care and the ACA. Characteristics of patient-centered care will be discussed as they relate to rehabilitation settings.

The health behavioral models that are common in health care will be introduced as they relate to the foundations of motivational interviewing. Rehabilitation clinicians need training in the background of motivational interviewing if they are going to be successful with patient-centered care in their practices.

This chapter will present the three most common communication styles used in health care and provide examples on when best to use each of them.

The 14 most common types of questions to ask in MI will be presented, along with examples of each to use with your patients.

The definition, process, and antecedents of health coaching will be discussed. Typical questions to ask your patient using health coaching will be presented with examples.

Examples of health coaching in the current literature will be discussed, including Coach2Move, Walk On!, and I-CAN.

Lifestyle Medicine has key motivations, parameters and skills that are need to make assess and create a successful program.

Review the attributes of Physical Therapy & its mission to improve quality of life. Review the opportunities for Physical Therapists to lead and consult on LM initiatives.

Explore and Outline alternative programs for your facility, practice. Looking at Individual models, small groups and community outreach models and consultation. What Model meets your community & your practice setting?

This chapter will discuss what “wellness” is currently and discuss whether the concept has been successfully managed. An appropriate wellness plan should have measurable objectives and a cost analysis to determine its true effectiveness.

This chapter offers a discussion of how rehabilitation professionals are best suited to deliver an appropriate and meaningful employee health and wellness program in the corporate environment. By utilizing the specific skill sets of the rehabilitation professional, an overall lifestyle management program can be developed that accounts for the current medical status of the employee.

Most employee wellness programs have only a 20% engagement of the entire employee population. Strategies will be discussed that include the employer’s responsibilities in creating a culture of health and delivering incentive programs that will increase employee engagement to 75%.

A program of health and wellness must include identifying medical conditions that could impact the employee’s performance and productivity. During the hiring process, basic medical complications should be addressed. Additionally, an employee health and wellness program needs to include a plan for employees who unfortunately get injured on the job and may need rehabilitation services as well as a return to work plan. A Total Worker Wellness program manages employee health from pre-hire to retire.

A final discussion will include how the employer can develop a relationship with a healthcare team that will improve the population health of the employee community and drive down the cost of healthcare. This team of healthcare professionals should include primary care, rehabilitation, nutrition, and fitness experts. This team of professionals should be closely working with the health and safety departments of the corporation.

This chapter will outline what medical fitness is and who would best benefit from its development. Medical fitness is an opportunity for rehabilitation professionals. Physical and occupational therapists are perfectly positioned to deliver a medical fitness service. They are the best educated and have the appropriate skill sets to deliver this much-needed service.

This chapter presents lifestyle management discussions concerning what services and what personnel are needed to have a lifestyle management service integrated into a rehab practice setting. Participants will also learn how best to engage patient populations into a lifestyle management program.

An overview of the initial costs and budgets required to initiate a medical fitness service into the rehabilitation setting will be described. Additionally, we will present the ROI (return on investment) that can be expected.

In this chapter, Russ will provide an overview of successful marketing techniques proven to increase referrals to the rehabilitation practice and how best to build a cash-paying membership from these referrals.

The medical neighborhood is the obvious evolution of the medical fitness service. This chapter provides a description of what makes up a medical neighborhood and how to involve and utilize other healthcare services to improve the population health of any community.