When Halifax family physician Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan (Dr. AJ) had an older patient with an injured knee walk into her office using walking poles, it got her thinking about how Nordic walking could benefit more of her patients.

“Even though he had an acute knee injury, he was holding himself upright and walking with greater ease,” she recalled. “He did better than most of my patients do with an injury like that. In fact, he went on a long pilgrimage, which I didn’t think was even possible, but he was able to do it because of the poles.”

Dr. AJ dug into the research on the benefits of Nordic walking and how it could help people improve their mobility, be more active and manage chronic health issues. “There’s a lot of value to using Nordic poles to activate muscles and create new muscle memory, as well as many other benefits,” she says.

Get moving, safely
She ended up encouraging her father, who lives with Parkinson’s disease, to try walking poles. “With Parkinson’s, so many things change – your balance, your stiffness. To my amazement, when my dad used the poles, there was more fluidity, so he could build up his muscles and his balance.”

Seeing an opportunity to expand the benefits beyond her own family practice, Dr. AJ teamed up with Halifax physiotherapist Laura Lundquist of Zoomers Physiotherapy to develop a pilot program called Get Up and Go.

With funding from Doctors Nova Scotia’s Section of Family Doctors Council, the program saw Halifax family doctors prescribing free specialized walking poles and working with physiotherapists from Zoomers Physiotherapy for assessment, training and guidance for their use.

Activate your muscles
Thirty people aged 50 to 84 took part in the pilot program, including people living with diabetes, COPD, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and hip replacement. The poles helped participants become active, safely, not just for walking outside but also when exercising indoors.

Ms. Lundquist notes that when you walk with poles, your muscle use increases by 40%, which ramps up the caloric burn. “The poles can help with weight loss, offloading painful joints, feeling more stable, confident and comfortable to get out and get more out of a walking program or to use the poles in strengthening or balancing exercises at home,” she says.

Find the right fit
Patients can choose between two types of poles, depending on the activities they’ll be doing: urban poles for walking or activator poles for people requiring more stability.

“It takes skill to learn how to use the poles,” Ms. Lundquist says, “and it’s important to make sure the poles are set up properly for you and that you know the technique that works best for you.”

Dr. AJ says the project has given her a new tool to use in her family practice. “It’s gratifying to see my patients improve their mobility and see other benefits. We can start to reinforce them with more exercises, which helps sustain them to keep using the poles.”

The program recently launched provincially as Get Up and Go Nova Scotia, with the aim of reaching more family doctors and primary care providers across the province. Providers are invited to sign up here for more information.

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