Promotion of physical activity for older patients with rheumatism. Characteristics of inflammatory rheumatic diseases against the background of physical activity recommendations

Due to the wide range of positive effects and the clear evidence of effectiveness, physical activity is one of the most important treatments for inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Because of the frequent overlap of disease and age-related aspects in older patients, the implementation of the German national physical activity recommendations has to be checked and accompanied by physicians. To get the older patients in motion, apatient-centered approach is required that takes the individual health problem(s) and the current context of life into account. This article provides an overview of the activity-related characteristics of older patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Against this background asimple strategy is provided for promoting physical activity during medical consultation, which takes the characteristics of older patients with rheumatism into consideration. In this way, physicians can integrate atargeted, resource and time-saving economic strategy into consultations that is in concordance with the national physical activity recommendations.