Sport-Santé Actimeter

The Sport-Santé™ actimeter was introduced in early 2018 to increase the number of patients who are advised by their medical doctors to engage regularly in physical activity. The actimeter is a cardboard folder containing four A5 pages that give instructions for use, definitions of physical activity levels, the WHO recommendations on health-enhancing physical activity for adults and an algorithm to help caregivers give guidance suitable for their patient. The back cover shows the actimeter, which is a coloured wheel that enables health workers to identify whether patients meet the recommendations from the answers to two questions on the frequency with which they engage in physical activity. The wheel can be used to align the number of days per week with the number of minutes per session, and a colour code shows whether the patient meets the WHO recommendations.
The proportion of patients who are advised to engage in physical activity is evaluated before the actimeter is sent to general practitioners and again 1 month after the mailing. The actimeter may remind medical doctors to assess patients’ physical activity level, facilitate the assessment, simplify the results for patients and inform them about current recommendations. The tool can be an efficient means of promoting physical activity in primary care and can be distributed to other health care professionals.