• Project Profiles
  • NICU Feeding Practices
  • Approaches to Public Health Nursing
  • HKN Gap Analysis
  • Evidence Literacy Project
  • Assessing Patient Complexity
  • Early Identification of Autism
  • Measuring Quality Care
  • Young Adults in Long-Term Care
  • Reducing Medication Errors
  • Making Exercise Sticky
  • Stroke Guidelines
  • Driving Change in Mental Health
  • Help for New Mothers
  • Mentoring Makes a Difference
  • Pay-for-Performance
  • Good Care is About People
  • Working Better Together
  • Health Technology Assessment
  • Looking at the Link between Pain and Aggression
  • Reviewing Determinants of Health
  • End of Life Care Decisions in Focus
  • Rural Health Service Delivery
  • Looking at Organizational Problems
  • Integrating Evaluation with Planning
  • Rural Health Needs
  • Suicide Prevention
  • Student Health
  • Hepatitis A Immunity Project
• Participant Profiles
• Knowledge Infostructure
• Celebrating the Legacy

Making Exercise Sticky

At one time or another, many of us have let good intentions slip and fallen off the exercise wagon. Todd Wolansky wants to keep us moving. As a physical therapist with Alberta Health Services in Jasper, he was involved in developing an eight-week exercise program as part of a Chronic Disease Prevention and Management strategy.

"Participants were getting excellent results but we knew from experience that many people stop exercising once the formal program ends," says Wolanksy. "Given that the benefits of exercise are compelling, are there interventions that will help people maintain active lifestyles?" This question became Wolansky's local project for SEARCH VI, and served as the perfect segue into his new job as Research and Evaluation Officer.

After a systematic review of the literature, Wolansky identified four key strategies: promotion of self-efficacy; encouragement of self-directed goal setting; re-assessment of outcomes at various intervals following participation; and exercise consultation with a health professional in the year following participation.

Wolansky notes that the first two strategies had already been incorporated; however the other two follow-up strategies had not been implemented. When he sat down with his management and clinical teams to discuss the results, it was agreed that re-assessment and exercise consultation represented opportunities to improve the program at a relatively small cost per person. The details are now being worked out.

Wolansky says that while it's gratifying to see research results put into practice so quickly, he wants to emphasize that the learning in SEARCH goes far beyond the projects. "SEARCH has been hugely helpful to me, especially as a young professional who is interested in health leadership. I've developed a network of innovative, exciting people. I've learned about leadership and change management, and I've expanded my understanding of organizations and how to maneuver within them. It's been invaluable."