Michelle Janelsins, PhD, MPH, professor of Surgery, Cancer Control, at University of Rochester Medicine, led the study with a team at the Wilmot Cancer Institute. She is a member of Wilmot’s Cancer Prevention and Control research program.

For several years, Wilmot researchers have consistently focused on exercise as an intervention for cancer-related symptoms. They have published groundbreaking studies on how various forms of exercise — walking, resistance bands, yoga — can lessen the burden of cancer-related cognitive issues, fatigue, anxiety, and insomnia. The latest study also had patients taking 200 mg of ibuprofen (one pill) twice a day.

The journal Cancer, of the American Cancer Society, published the latest study, a phase 2 clinical trial.

Up to 80% of patients report brain fog during and after cancer treatment, labeling it “chemo-brain” to describe difficulty with memory, paying attention, and multitasking.

The study showed that both exercise and ibuprofen — alone or in combination — lessened the fog, although exercise appeared to be the most beneficial, even if a person is starting out sedentary or not feeling well on certain days.

“Having patients do as much as they can is better than nothing,” Janelsins said.

Research “Firsts”

Anti-inflammatory medicines in this setting have been studied pre-clinically, but Janelsins believes this is the first study to look at ibuprofen in individuals taking chemotherapy who reported cognitive problems.

One unique way that researchers measured improvement was to note the observations of a patient’s family members and friends.

Another thing that sets this study apart from others, Janelsins said: Researchers intentionally designed the study to address alleviating chemo-brain as an outcome. Another major strength of this study was to include objective, performance-based cognitive tests and patient-reported outcomes.

“We are encouraged by the findings of this trial that suggest possible benefits of both interventions for some cognitive domains. Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors,” Janelsins said.

Ibuprofen Worked Well, but Exercise is Still Essential

Researchers randomized 86 cancer patients from Rochester and throughout upstate New York, who were receiving chemotherapy and reported cognitive problems, to one of four study arms for six weeks.

The first arm included a proprietary exercise program founded at the URochester Medicine called Exercise for Cancer Patients (EXCAP©®) + low-dose Ibuprofen. The second group received EXCAP plus a placebo; the third group received low-dose Ibuprofen alone, and the fourth group received only a placebo. (EXCAP©® is a home-based, low-to-moderate intensity, progressive walking and resistance exercise prescription.)

After six weeks, participants in the EXCAP plus placebo group demonstrated significantly better attention compared with the placebo group. The ibuprofen-only group also showed greater improvements than the placebo group.

The group who received exercise plus ibuprofen or exercise alone exhibited improvements that were noticeable by family and friends.

The findings suggest that ibuprofen may help improve some cognitive functions, but perhaps to a lesser extent and less consistently than exercise.

Although no adverse events were reported in this study, Janelsins emphasized that patients with chemo-brain should discuss any interventions they are planning to use with their oncology team to avoid potential harmful effects or drug interactions with existing medications.

Janelsins and her team are also analyzing results of a larger, nationwide phase 2 clinical trial that also evaluates low-dose ibuprofen and are planning for phase 3 trials for both exercise and low-dose ibuprofen.

“Since we saw cognitive benefits in some domains and not others,” Janelsins said, “we will also consider additional doses and longer durations in future research trials.”

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But people with high blood sugar often don’t achieve those benefits from exercise, especially the ability to use oxygen efficiently. They’re at higher risk for heart and kidney disease, but high blood sugar can prevent their muscles from taking up oxygen more effectively in response to exercise.

For them, a new study suggests the answer could be eating not less fat, but more.

The study by exercise medicine scientist Sarah Lessard, published Feb. 25 in Nature Communications, found that a high-fat, ketogenic diet reduced high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, in mice, and their bodies were more responsive to exercise.

“After one week on the ketogenic diet, their blood sugar was completely normal, as though they didn’t have diabetes at all,” said Lessard, associate professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC Center for Exercise Medicine Research. “Over time, the diet caused remodeling of the mice’s muscles, making them more oxidative and making them react better to aerobic exercise.”

The ketogenic diet is named for its ability to induce ketosis, a metabolic state that shifts the body to burning fat for fuel instead of sugar. The diet is controversial because it calls for eating high-fat, very low-carbohydrate foods, which is counter to the low-fat diet historically urged by health advocates.

However, the keto diet has been linked to benefits for people with some diseases, including epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. In the 1920s, before the discovery of insulin, it was a way to manage diabetes because of its ability to lower blood sugar.

In earlier research, Lessard found that people with high blood sugar had lower exercise capacity. She wondered if the diet might improve the response to exercise, leading to higher exercise capacity.

Mice were fed a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet and exercised on running wheels. The mice developed more slow-twitch muscle fibers, which give better endurance.

“Their bodies were more efficiently using oxygen, which is a sign of higher aerobic capacity,” Lessard said.

Lessard said exercise positively affects virtually every tissue in our body, even fat tissue, but she and others are seeing that the greatest health improvements won’t come with diet or exercise alone.

“What we’re really finding from this study and from our other studies is that diet and exercise aren’t simply working in isolation,” said Lessard, who also holds an appointment in the Department of Human Foods, Nutrition, and Exercise in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “There are a lot of combined effects, and so we can get the most benefits from exercise if we eat a healthy diet at the same time.”

Next, Lessard would like to continue her research in human subjects to see if they gain the same benefits from the keto diet seen in mice.

She also notes that the keto diet is challenging to follow. A less restrictive regimen, such as the Mediterranean diet, might be easier for people to follow and still be effective. That diet can also keep blood sugar low, while including carbohydrates from unprocessed fruits, vegetables, and whole grains rather than restricting carbohydrates altogether.

“Our previous studies have shown that any strategy you and your doctor have arrived at to reduce your blood sugar could work,” she said.

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In a study published today in npj Digital Medicine, the researchers found that while activity levels then slowly declined over time, even after 30 months those users who were still using the app were more active than they had been beforehand.

Lack of physical activity is linked to poor health, including higher rates of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancers, dementia, depression and early death. Almost 4 million premature deaths per year – and healthcare costs of US$27 billion – are attributable to physical inactivity.

In England, more than one in three (37%) adults do not reach the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity – which can include brisk walking – and around one in four (26%) adults does less than 30 minutes per week.

Recently, mobile health apps have grown in popularity, allowing users to track their physical activity, offering tailored feedback, goal setting opportunities and activity reminders throughout the day. One such app is NHS Active 10, launched in 2017 to increase brisk walking levels, as walking is the most common form of activity reported by English adults. The app has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its introduction.

In the first formal evaluation of its effectiveness, researchers from the University of Cambridge examined anonymised data from more than 200,000 users of the app – those who used the app for at least a month – collected between July 2021 and January 2024. These users had agreed for their anonymised data to be collected and shared for research purposes.

Three quarters of those users who provided demographic information were women, and the average age of users was 51 years. One in three users (32%) was aged 60 years or over.

Following download, the app requested permission from users to access their historical walking data. This revealed that prior to using the app, individuals spent on average 12.3 minutes per day in brisk walking and 30.4 minutes per day in non-brisk walking.

On the first day the app was downloaded, users walked on average an additional 9.0 minutes per day briskly. Their non-brisk walking increased by 2.6 minutes per day.

Over time, the amount of brisk walking done by users declined, falling on average 0.15 minutes per day for each month that passed. The amount of non-brisk walking also fell, by 0.06 minutes per day for each month that passed.

Over a third of users (35%) were still using the app after six months and a fifth (21%) after a year. This is much higher than the average for health and fitness apps worldwide, where typically less than three in 100 users (2.8%) are still using the app after 30 days.

At the end of 30 months, users were still walking an average of 4.5 minutes more per day briskly and 0.8 minutes per day more non-briskly than before they began using the app.

First author Dr Dharani Yerrakalva, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, said: “Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using it.

“At the population level, other research has suggested that we would see significant health benefits from even modest increases in activity such as this. Previous work by colleagues at Cambridge suggests that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking could prevent one in 10 premature deaths.”

Senior author Professor Simon Griffin, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and  the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “Active 10 appears to have a been a success, in that it encouraged 200,000 people to increase their levels of moderate physical activity. We should now consider whether apps such as this can be integrated into NHS practice, for example providing data to GPs so they can monitor their patients’ progress and provide tailored advice, to help us move towards a more personalised approach to medicine.”

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council, with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

“It’s right there in my face if I’ve been lazy!” – Sonali Shukla

Sonali Shukla is a careers consultant at the University of Cambridge. Living in Cambridge, she was used to cycling to work, but when her daughter was born, she found that a combination of looking after her and the recent Covid lockdowns meant she had become less active.

“I started using the NHS Active 10 app around six months after my daughter was born,” she says. “I was looking for ways to get a bit more active. I was intrigued because I’ve used the step counter on my phone, but what was interesting about this one is that it tracks your brisk walking.”

Sonali initially downloaded the app out of curiosity so see whether or not she walked briskly, but then found herself hooked, motivated by the trophies and celebrations it gave when she completed 10 minutes of brisk walking.

She found the results illuminating as it highlighted the impact her daughter had on her physical activity levels, even when she thought she was getting enough exercise. “I might go for an hour long walk, but when I’ve got small children in tow, it’s too leisurely to really count as proper exercise.”

Even now, three years later, she still uses the app. “The version that I have on my phone has a little tracker that you don’t have to log into the app to see. It tracks your brisk walking on the face of your phone. So it’s right there in my face if I’ve been lazy!”

Sonali has managed to keep active, and although the app isn’t the only reason why, she says it certainly helps.

“When the weather’s bad and it’s not as easy to just go for a walk, I might notice that it’s been a couple of days before I’ve really moved. It encourages me to go outside and get moving.”

Reference

Yerrakalva, D et al. Evaluation of the NHS Active 10 Walking App Intervention through time-series analysis in 201,688 individuals. npj Digital Medicine; 6 Aug 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01785-x

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Parkrun is an organised, timed, and free 5 km run, jog, walk, or wheel on Saturday mornings—in parks, on beaches, or on trails around the world but mainly in the UK, where it originated.

Parkrun has some paid staff, but the work of setting up, timing, and result processing is done by local volunteer teams. Around 200,000 people now take part each week.

“I love parkrun and believe that it can make a real difference to public health,” writes McCartney. But “prescribing”? Prescribing is for drugs that are, in general, deemed too dangerous for the public to have direct access to. Are we really meant to encourage people to consider exercise in the same domain?

Turning parkrun into a prescription makes it less about pleasure and fun, more like work and compliance, she argues. “This approach doesn’t support patient autonomy or embedding social resources for a community. Instead, it grapples with gatekeeping and—literally—medicalises a walk in the park.”

What’s more, prescribing parkrun is not, as some researchers have described it, a “simple, cost effective solution for sustainability, improving wellbeing, reducing loneliness, and disease prevention.”

While some people may very much like it, get all of these advantages, regularly attend, and enjoy all the benefits that come with socialising, fresh air, and friendly venues for exercise, McCartney points out that 43% of people who register for parkrun don’t attend, 22% participate only once, and people who describe themselves as physically inactive are less likely to return.

The Royal College of General Practitioners’ approval for “prescribing” parkrun could also be considered catnip to commercial sponsors, she adds. For example, the Advertising Standards Authority previously told Healthspan, a vitamin supplier, to change its health claims after parkrun included one of their adverts in their newsletter.

“I still go to parkrun. But partnerships risk commercial opportunism, and medicalising exercise is a retrograde step. Resources should belong to the community, not to doctors,” she concludes.

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An international team including Lancaster University studied the behaviour of recently-diagnosed T2D patients in Canada and the UK as they followed a home-based physical activity programme, with some participants wearing a smartwatch paired with a health app on their smartphone.

The ‘Mobile Health Biometrics to Enhance Exercise and Physical Activity Adherence in Type 2 Diabetes (MOTIVATE-T2D) feasibility trial recruited participants aged 40-75 years, diagnosed with T2D within the previous 5-24 months and managing their condition through lifestyle modification alone or Metformin.

They discovered that MOTIVATE-T2D participants were more likely to start and maintain purposeful exercise at if they had the support of wearable technology. The study successfully recruited 125 participants with an 82% retention rate after 12 months.

Publishing their findings in BMJ Open, researchers reveal a range of potential clinical benefits among participants including improvements in blood sugar levels and systolic blood pressure.

Professor Céu Mateus, Professor of Health Economics at Lancaster University, led the economic evaluation of this intervention in terms of its costs and benefits in comparison with the alternative.

She said: “The results of this study can contribute to change the lives of many people around the world. There are millions of people suffering from Diabetes type 2 without access to non-pharmacological interventions with sustained results in the long term. Our study shows that independently of the place where you live, your age, your ethnicity, your gender, or your income, there is an exercise programme that suits you.

“In a time where savings to health services budgets are of paramount importance, non-pharmacological interventions contributing to improve equity in access by patients are very valuable for society.”

Co-author Dr Katie Hesketh, from the University of Birmingham, said: “We found that using biometrics from wearable technologies offered great promise for encouraging people with newly diagnosed T2D to maintain a home-delivered, personalised exercise programme with all the associated health benefits.”

Researchers found that, as well as the encouraging data for blood sugar and systolic blood pressure, the programme could help to lower cholesterol and improve quality of life.

The programme saw participants gradually increasing purposeful exercise of moderate-to-vigorous intensity – aiming for a target of 150 minutes per week by the end of 6 months and supported by an exercise specialist-led behavioural counselling service delivered virtually.

MOTIVATE-T2D used biofeedback and data sharing to support the development of personalised physical activity programmes. Wearable technologies included a smartwatch, featuring a 3D accelerometer and optical heart rate monitor, synced with an online coaching platform for the exercise specialist and web/smartphone app for participants.

Dr Hesketh said: “The programme offered a variety of workouts, including cardio and strength training, that could be done without the need for a gym. Its goal is to make exercise a sustainable part of daily life for people with Type 2 Diabetes, ultimately improving their physical and mental health.”

Image: Participants were more likely to start and maintain purposeful exercise at if they had the support of wearable technology

View more Credit: Lancaster University

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Modern lifestyles have led to reduced physical activity and a rise in chronic diseases from a young age. Exercise has emerged as a key component in health policies, not only integrating medical and sports models but also enhancing public health, treating and preventing chronic diseases, and improving the elderly’s self-care abilities. Exercise, as a natural and side-effect-free treatment, has been proven effective against numerous chronic diseases. Professor Chen Shiyi’s team has found that exercise can enhance immunotherapy in treating certain cancers and slow down physiological aging. An increasing body of evidence suggests that exercise emerges as the “third pole” (which means Sports medicine occupies a unique and indispensable position in clinical practice, and it is as important as medication and surgery.)

Exercise prescriptions, akin to medical prescriptions, offer personalized exercise recommendations for treating or preventing diseases and enhancing physical fitness. These prescriptions, crafted by specialists, detail exercise types, frequency, intensity, and duration, catering to a wide range of individuals, from youths to the elderly, and those with chronic diseases.

The future of exercise prescriptions lies in their detailed and systematic application as comprehensive health management plans. Key development areas include personalized services, integration with modern medical equipment, professional training, and public awareness. As exercise prescriptions gain traction, they are set to contribute significantly to public health, with China poised to cooperate with other countries in sports medicine research globally.

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A study, published in the academic journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, suggests that life changes which combine both physical activity and mindfulness are most effective at lifting mood and improving health and wellbeing.

Both physical activity and mindfulness practice have well established psychological benefits. However, by reviewing existing research studies, this is one of the first to show how the positive effects can be increased when the two are combined.

Its findings suggest that mindfulness can help to unlock exercise by helping to motivate people to start in the first place, whilst overcoming minor pain, discomfort or feelings of failure when exercising gets hard.

Analysis of existing research found mindfulness to be highly effective at reducing worry, stress, anxiety, and helping people to live healthier, happier lives. The benefits for mental and physical health from mindfulness were found in people with and without health issues.

The study was conducted by psychologist Masha Remskar, an expert in behaviour change, mindfulness and exercise based at the University of Bath, with support from the Medito Foundation – a mindfulness non-profit with a mission to build a more mindful world.

Through its work, Medito has developed a mindfulness meditation app – a free alternative to paid-for services such as Headspace and Calm. It is collaborating with Bath to help improve people’s mental wellbeing but also to help them get more active.

Based on the research findings, the team have created and released the first of two mindfulness audio courses aiming to help people get into the habit of exercise. Later in 2024, they will release a second guide, focused on sustaining their exercise habit.

Masha Remskar from the University’s Department of Health explained: “Starting 2024 with a resolution to exercise more can have really positive physical and mental health benefits. But we know that starting out can be tough and that it can also be hard to stick with it over time.

“Mindfulness is an approach that can help us ‘train up’ the psychological strengths we need to exercise and be more in tune with our bodies, as well as make exercising more interesting and help us recognise its benefits.

“This may be because becoming more mindful prompts us to think differently about our lifestyle, makes us more accepting and less judgemental of our own shortcomings, which can help to build healthy habits.

“There is a huge potential to use mindfulness to unlock the positive benefits exercise can bring.”

Steven Yorke, co-founder at Medito added: “Mindfulness mobile apps are a great way to boost our mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, all too often companies put up paywalls, making the benefits of mindfulness inaccessible to some.

“At Medito, we believe that meditation and mindfulness should be available free of charge, to anyone, forever. This is why our mindfulness app, Medito, is and always will be free.

“This collaboration with the University of Bath has been a great way to expand the range of mindfulness meditations we can offer, and it feels great to be at the cutting edge of mindfulness science while we do this.”

Building on this work, the team are about to start conducting a larger trial to determine the effectiveness and optimal intervention moments for combining exercise and mindfulness.

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The study, published today in JAMA Psychiatry, divided participants into either a waitlisted control group or an exercise group who were given free access to a suite of home exercise apps called DownDog, that included yoga, cardio and strength training. They were asked to aim for at least 80 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week over 12 weeks.

“The exercise group reported significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms compared to the control group as the study progressed,” said first author Dr. Vincent Gosselin-Boucher, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC’s school of kinesiology. “The majority of the participants in the study started very high on the scale for depressive symptoms compared to the general population so the changes were actually quite amazing to see.”

The positive effects were most pronounced among participants who completed an average of at least 80 minutes of exercise per week.

In addition to depressive symptoms, the researchers measured burnout symptoms and sick days over the two-week period prior to the beginning of their participation in the study, and every two weeks during the trial, while the exercise apps tracked participants’ workouts.

Exercise improved two measured facets of burnout, namely cynicism and emotional exhaustion. The exercise group also reported fewer sick days than the control group.

Using physical activity to boost mental health

While previous research has shown that exercise can improve depressive symptoms, researchers said behavioural approaches such as exercise were missing in the mental health initiatives offered by healthcare institutions around the world to address covid-19’s toll on their staff’s mental health.

“Our study provides the first evidence that working out at home using exercise apps, even with limited equipment, can significantly enhance the mental health of healthcare workers,” said lead author Dr. Eli Puterman, an associate professor at UBC’s school of kinesiology and Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Health.

“The past three years have been incredibly difficult for healthcare workers. Offering accessible, easy ways to exercise could be a great tool for employers to support their staff’s mental well-being, in addition to the institutional, provincial, and federal measures currently being undertaken to reduce healthcare workers’ burnout, sick leave and resignations.”

The study was conducted in collaboration with Providence Health Care and recruited participants across acute and long-term care hospitals in Vancouver, B.C. Most participants were women who worked as nurses.

For study co-investigator Agnes Black, director of Health Services and Clinical Research and Knowledge Translation at Providence Health Care, the study offers a welcome, preventative approach to mental health care.

“We recognize the incredible stress healthcare workers have endured during the pandemic and amid ongoing staff shortages. This is a really innovative and low-cost way to have a positive impact by putting our money upstream, before people are in crisis, are burnt out and have to call in sick. It’s a way to say, ‘We want to make it super easy for you to fit exercise into your day so you can stay physically and mentally healthy as you continue your vital work.’”

Making working out a habit

The study found that a major challenge was getting participants to stick to the program: between week two and week 12, adherence to the recommended 80 minutes of exercise per week dropped to 23 per cent of participants, from 54 per cent.

In the future, the researchers plan to explore whether providing motivational support such as fitness coaches can nurture the exercise habit.

“We also hope to do longer-term trials to focus on the broader mental, physical and economic impacts of this type of intervention,” said Dr. Puterman.

He encourages healthcare institutions to think about other ways they can support healthcare workers to be more physically active, such as offering free gym memberships, walk breaks at work, or staff exercise rooms within hospitals.

“While our findings underscore the potential of low-barrier interventions like offering exercise apps, we also have to figure out and address factors that prevent healthcare workers from exercising. Whether these are work-related stressors or other factors, we need to support healthcare workers on multiple fronts.”

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Caparrós, holder of a PhD in Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, seeks to examine new methods and procedures for improving the efficacy of physical activity programmes to treat different conditions in a study that has received funding from Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation. The first research results, published in open access, involve a non-quantitative analysis of 13 studies from between 2011 and 2021 designed to examine the extent to which people’s individual characteristics and conditions are taken into account when prescribing and carrying out physical activity programmes.

The importance of physical activity in health

Everyone aged between 18 and 64 should carry out between 150 and 300 minutes of moderate (or between 75 and 150 minutes of intense) physical exercise per week. Those aged 65 and over should also complement this activity with exercises designed to enhance their quality of life and reduce risks of harm. These are the recommendations made by the World Health Organization (WHO), which also says that physical activity can help in the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular conditions, cancer and diabetes.

The WHO defines physical activity as ‘any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure’ The term therefore refers to ‘all movement including during leisure time, for transport to get to and from places, or as part of a person’s work’. In other words, the WHO includes in this definition everything from walking and playing to intense sporting activities. So, this differentiates general physical activity from physical exercise, defined by the American College of Sports Medicine as planned, structured, and repetitive bodily movement done to improve or maintain one or more components of physical fitness.

For both physical activity and physical exercise, digital and mobile health (mHealth) tools are becoming increasingly common and are being heralded as a solution for improved management, evaluation and monitoring by medical professionals. ‘Face-to-face sessions are effective and necessary, but the digital sphere also has its advantages. It helps encompass broader swaths of the population and reach those who, because they are geographically more remote or have difficulties in travelling, cannot access face-to-face treatments,’ said Caparrós. ‘If we can ensure that there is fluid communication using digital tools, these programmes can end up being highly effective.’

Towards higher quality, more individualized exercise

After drawing up an initial longlist of more than 400 works of research on the use of mobile technology in physical activity programmes, UOC researchers ended up whittling the number down to 13 academic publications meeting the criteria they were seeking to assess. These are the principal conclusions of their analysis:

• • Improved intervention efficacy. 70% of cases studies showed a significant improvement in the efficacy of physical activity treatments.
• • Improved adherence. 85% of the studies analysed concluded that treatment adherence (sticking with it) was greater when mHealth technologies were involved.
• • A quantity-centred approach. When it came to studying the impact of these treatments, most research focused on the amount of exercise (e.g. the number of steps in a day) rather than the intensity or quality.
• • Mobiles and apps, most frequently used. Although some treatments were provided through technologies like text messages or social networks, the most common support came in the form of mobile apps and smartphones.
• • Scant individualization of treatments. Almost none of the studies analysed reflected the adaptation of physical activity programmes to take account of the patient’s abilities, age or illness.

‘Even though the sample analysed is very small, the first noteworthy conclusion is that digtial-based physical exercise interventions are at least as effective as face-to-face ones,’ explained Caparrós. ‘But we’ve also seen how all these proposals use very generic variables and fail to provide quality information, as their designs are not tailored to the participants or their illnesses. Obviously, you can’t interact with someone over 70 in the same way as you would with a young person with a completely different digital skillset.’

This has led his research towards a new line of study, which will continue over the course of the work on the thesis, to improve the digital-health-based prescription of physical exercise to take account of patients’ individual requirements (based on their illness and physical condition and prescribed in accordance with medical criteria) and their digital skillset. ‘Quantity-wise, it’s easy to manage exercise online, but when it comes to quality and intensity, which are what really matter, no sufficiently in-depth analysis has been conducted,’ said Caparrós.

This research is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

This research supports