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Invited Commentary
December 28, 2018

Exercise Programs in Older Adults—A Prescription for Fall Reduction

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham
  • 2Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Birmingham, Alabama
JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(3):405-406. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.5389

Eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise. For food and exercise work together to produce health.

Hippocrates1

Since the age of Hippocrates, physicians have advised patients to participate in regular physical activity. More recently, with the formation of the Exercise Is Medicine initiative (EIM) of the American College of Sports Medicine, physicians have been encouraged to treat exercise as they would a medication. Physicians are advised to prescribe exercise to patients with specific instructions on the proper dose, timing, and route of administration.2 An electronic version of a prescription can be printed from the EIM website for physicians to use for exercise prescriptions.3

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