Who is inactive? What should health and fitness providers do about it?
Sedentary behaviour is one of humanities greatest threats to physical and mental health. The problem is that people with pain and/or discomfort will avoid exercise, despite exercise being the one thing that science has proven will help the vast majority of people.
Exercise is not just a great cure (for most, but not all problems), but a great way to prevent ill health in the first place.
So, who is inactive, and what should be do about it?
We've got a huge population of kids who are sedentary.
We've got 52% of EU workers with MSK, similar stats in the UK.
You've got a hundred million Europeans with chronic pain due to MSK alone. 40% have got no diagnosis!
We keep looking inside their bodies at bones and joints, instead of looking at the quality of the movement. You can have patella femoral pain because your body doesn't move well and have no sign of any problems on MRI or X-Ray. Most health providers are aware of this. So how are health providers supposed to manage these people if there's no evidence of injury on an image and there is no ICD 10 code?
At Qinematic, we propose that if you can address the way people move and improve dysfunction, you can do a lot for many of the problems that are still undiagnosed.
Insurance companies are well aware of this, by the way. Qinematic has worked with them for many years. What is missing are providers prepared to sing from the same hymn sheet and chase problems with function as well as structure. And to measure function in a meaningful and objective way, to show the clients and the payers how they are making a difference.
30% of old people fall every year. It's a big number and it’s a huge cost to society.
One of the risk factors that they've identified in the UK is a cold home. A cold house is associated with a higher the incident are falling in the elderly. How do they know this - well they collect data about temperature and about falls - simple.
If health and fitness professionals collected more data about people's balance, which nobody does except for with an old school stopwatch, we'd be able to explain why somebody can't stand on one leg, and is at risk of falling. Monitoring the center of pressure on a force plate is an OK start, but we still need to know what body parts are failing them, and not just ask people if they have bad balance.
We should quantify balance as physiotherapists before people actually fall, and explain that a person has a risk of falling if the balance deficits are not addressed.
Glenn Bilby
Founding CEO, Qinematic AB
Human Movement Scientist, Physiotherapists, MBA