Physical Activity and the Multidisciplinary Team

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Multidisciplinary Team And Physical Activity

Multidisciplinary Team

Patients’ care yield better outcome when comprehensive approach, encompassing all healthcare professionals that has set role to play in alleviating patients ill health are used(mitchel). This is because the best and most cost-effective outcomes for patient/clients are achieved by professionals collaborating in work, learning, mapping out prognosis and creation of new ideas (NHME). This concept is termed Multidisciplinary team(MDT) approach to patient care.

Any word with a prefix “multi’ attached to it connotes “many”. The word disciplinary suggests “a concern with the knowledge and skills underlying particular roles” (Payne, 2000; p9). To better understand the concept of MDT, the termed 'team' needs to be explained.

what is team?

Cohen and Mohrman (1995) defines a team as”a group of individuals who work together to produce products or deliver services for which they are mutually accountable”. The shared goals of the team are made manifest by mutual and cordial interaction by team members   and the roles of each professionals in a team are mutually interdependent and accountable   to enable achievement of set goals.

In Multidisciplinary team, each team member implements a specialized part of a care plan and the main aim of multidisciplinary teams is to collate a range of views on people’s care and to use optimally the knowledge and capabilities from many professionals and sectors.

Multidisciplinary Team versus Interdisciplinary team

Multidisciplinary team approaches make use knowledge and expertise of professionals from different disciplines, with each discipline approaching the patient from their own perspective. This approach often involves separate individual consultations. It is common for multidisciplinary teams to meet regularly, in the absence of the client to discuss about shared goals, findings and discuss future directions for attainment of set goals. Multidisciplinary teams provide more knowledge and experience than disciplines operating in isolation.

Interdisciplinary team approaches, on the other hand, integrate separate discipline approaches into a single consultation. That is, assessment, intervention and short- and long-term management goals are conducted by the team, together with the client, at the one time. The client is intimately involved in any discussions.

Physical Activity and its Benefits

Being active and keeping active are important whether one is young or old, able bodied or not able bodied, and male or female (Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2009; WHO, 2010). The term “physical activity” describes many forms of movement, including activities that involve the large skeletal muscles (Caspersen et al, 1985; WHO, 2010). Physical activity is body movement produced by skeletal muscle contraction that results in energy expenditure (WHO, 2014).

PA Benefits includes but not limited to a reduced risk of premature mortality, non-communicable disease (NCDs) (such as coronary heart disease, hypertension, cancer, and diabetes mellitus), obesity, emotional stress and musculoskeletal disorders (Lee et al, 2014), better cardiovascular fitness and good health related quality of life. Research has demonstrated that virtually all individuals can benefit from regular physical activity, whether they participate in vigorous exercise or some type of moderate health-enhancing physical activity (Warburton et al, 2006). Even among frail and very old adults, mobility and functioning can be improved through physical activity (US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), 2002). Routine physical activity has been shown to lowers blood pressure (Juraschek et al. 2014; Dimeo et al, 2012), improve body composition (e.g., via a decrease in abdominal adiposity and normal body weight maintenance) ( Maiorana et al, 2003), enhance lipoprotein profiles (e.g., through reduced triglyceride levels and low-density lipoprotein [LDL]-to-HDL with increased high-density lipoprotein [HDL] cholesterol levels) (Warburton et al, 2006), enhanced glucose uptake (Hill and Wyatt, 2005), improve autonomic tone (Tiukinhoy et al, 2003),  and reduce systemic inflammation (Adamopoulos et al, 2001).

Multidisciplinary team for promotion PA Participation

It is widely accepted that no single medical discipline can provide complete care for people’s health and almost all health professional has a stake in physical activity as the benefits are numerous. The importance of the role of Physical activity (PA) in disease prevention and health promotion is well documented in literatures (Ayanniyi et al, 2012; Oyeyemi et al, 2013; WHO, 2014; Lee et al, 2014). There are also strong recommendations for the intensity and frequency of physical activity that everyone should aim to achieve throughout life to maintain good health. Despite these recommendations, there are evidences that PA rates decline consistently among adults (Agha et al, 2010; Oyeyemi et al, 2013). So the need for PA promotion cuts across all health professional as it benefits all spheres of healthcare.

Working as a MD team for promotion and enablement of PA will include wide range of professionals such as Physiotherapists, doctors, nurses, midwives, health visitors, teachers, dieticians, psychologists/psychotherapists, health and fitness workers, community workers, health policy makers and many other relative to propagating enhanced PA Level among the masses.

Benefits of Multidisciplinary Team for promotion PA Participation

An MDT for PA promotion will be:

working for common goals,

pooling of expertise,

serves as a forum for solving problems hindering PA participation

creating innovative ideas on how to improve PA in the populace,

Motivates one another to persevere in PA promotion.

Harmonize public or private organizations and groups who would not normally see themselves as having a role in PA promoting  alone.

Collabotative teamwork maximizes team members’ knowledge and understanding of each other, thus aid in roles description and boundaries as well as mitigate against rivalry.

more significant marked achievements, as there will be increases access to networks.

coordination in planning resources; delivery of resources for professionals to use for service users’ benefits (Payne, 2000).

References

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