Description and implementation of U-Turn Medical, a comprehensive lifestyle intervention programme for chronic disease in the sport and exercise medicine setting: pre-post observations in 210 consecutive patients

Background Non-communicable disease (NCD) is increasing, but management remains mostly curative, disease-centred and focused on single interventions. We describe the development and implementation of a patient-centred, comprehensive, multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention programme (LIP) for patients with NCD in the sport and exercise medicine (SEM) setting (part 1) and present preliminary observational data (part 2). Methods Part 1 is a description of the programme development and implementation. In part 2, 210 participants with NCD underwent a 12-week LIP (U-Turn Medical). Physiological, functional and metabolic outcomes were assessed at baseline and at completion. Results 84% of patients had two or more comorbidities, requiring additional considerations for exercise rehabilitation. On completion, there were decreases in % body fat (29.8 +/- 6.7% vs 28.5 +/- 6.6%), waist (100.2 +/- 16.2 vs 97.3 +/- 14.8 cm) and hip circumference (105.4 +/- 13 vs 104 +/- 12 cm), resting heart rate (74.2 +/- 13.4 vs 71.4 +/- 11.9 bpm), resting systolic blood pressure (125.7 +/- 16.1 vs 120.1 +/- 13 mm Hg) and cholesterol (4.7 +/- 1.2 vs 4.3 +/- 0.9 mmol/L), low-density lipoprotein (3 +/- 0.9 vs 2.7 +/- 0.8 mmol/L) and triglyceride (1.4 +/- 0.7 vs 1.3 +/- 0.6 mmol/L), and increases in flexibility (12.1 +/- 11.6 vs 16.1 +/- 10.8 cm) and 6 min walk distance (559.4 +/- 156.6 vs 652.3 +/- 193.6 m; all p<0.05). Conclusions A 12-week comprehensive, patient-centred LIP can be implemented successfully in the SEM setting in patients with NCDs with multiple comorbidities. Observed results show improvements in the majority of outcome variables.