A health promotion model from Shenzhen which advances the development of sports-medicine integration has been listed as one of the 18 typical practices of the Healthy China Action Plan.
The model, which promotes health through scientific fitness guidance, will also be promoted nationwide, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.
The Huaide Community Health Center in Bao’an District, with a 200-square-meter sports medicine guidance room, is one of the city’s community health centers to pilot the integration of sports and medicine under the guidance of the Shenzhen Sports and Medicine Integration Promotion Center.
In addition, the community health center is also equipped with fitness testing equipment and has set up a sports clinic and introduced a third-party sports medicine team to provide treatment guidance and training for the center’s health workers.
“We carry out body assessment through the physique monitoring machine and other equipment, so as to scientifically guide the patients’ exercise mode, time and intensity,” said Luo Zhengen, a doctor with Huaide Community Health Center.
One patient, Jiang Yanfang, 49, has hypertension. She used to rely on medication and diet control to improve her condition. In 2019, Jiang began to adopt the health center’s “exercise prescription.”
Jiang joined the health center’s chronic disease management group training camp. After three months of scientific exercise training, she could feel the benefits.
“My blood pressure was controlled and I didn’t gasp for breath even after climbing seven floors. I almost didn’t catch a cold in the past year,” Jiang was quoted as saying.
According to Wang Hongrui, president of Fuyong People’s Hospital, Huaide Community Health Center recruited patients in the community with hypertension, diabetes and other pre-existing health conditions and set up a group training camp.
Three months later, the participants’ blood glucose and blood pressure levels were significantly improved than those who did not exercise. The participants’ other health indicators such as blood lipid, uric acid and body weight were also significantly improved.
Shenzhen attaches great importance to the integration of sports and medicine, said the Daily. In its health regulations, the city has put forward the promotion of exercise prescriptions and the inclusion of physical fitness tests into residents’ physical examinations.