Have you ever thought about the credentials of the person who is treating you at a laboratory or is instructing you at a fitness centre? With the lack of statutory control and stipulated minimum standards in these industries, it is becoming important that we as consumers become aware of consequences of faulty treatments and misguided fitness work-out plans.
Every nook and corner of the city has gyms and fitness centres cropping up, since health management has really caught on. To start a fitness centre, all that is needed is investment in a prime location, a swanky air-conditioned interior and a few hi-tech machines.
There is no licence or regulation to check if the people in charge are trained.
Injuries at fitness centres are on the rise, from initial lower back spasms that may develop due to wrong postures of lifting heavy weights while doing barbell squats, wide-stance barbell squats and front lunges, to ankle injuries and joint ligament injuries, among others.
When we buy a pair of training shoes we pay attention to its aesthetic design, comfort and fitness. Yet, our exercise plan is not individualized. There is a common protocol and same set of exercises for all people going to a gym. Normally what should be done is an assessment of the present condition of the trainee so as to prevent DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscles Sores), a condition which needs a physiotherapist's
intervention.
Targeting mere toning or weight reduction seems to be the immediate and short term goal for most clients. Fitness in its strict sense consists of five main elements - strength (eg. ability to lift 30 pounds), endurance (ability to hold 30 pound for 40-45 sec), flexibility, core stability (the strengthening of the mid region) and relaxation. Once a person enters a fitness centre, he/she should undergo a test to see which of these five aspects needs to be attended to and accordingly should plan the activities.
An evidence based plan is very necessary since working out beyond the endurance limits makes the muscles produce lactic acid which causes a microbial (fine) tear. When you continue to exercise with this injury, it can lead to complications. What is then needed is a sports massage or muscle stretching; this will spread the lactic acid, thus preventing DOMS.
Same is the case when one is undergoing advanced treatment such as dialysis - do we ask for enough information? Or do we go totally by the faith of the doctors? Are we asking questions like, what is the quality of water being used? Is it RO or purified?
Hygiene levels such as, are hepatitis or AIDS patients being dialyzed in the same machine, and, is the machine being disinfected or is the centre too crowded and you are being put through a machine used by an infected person? Since there is no statutory permission required to set up a dialysis unit, anybody with the necessary financial strength can do so.
It is true that there is a shortage of both doctors and technicians in the country but is it proper to go to any unqualified centre and risk your life? These centres compromise on the cost of qualified doctors and technicians and therefore offer cheap services, but it is worth taking the risk?
According to Dr Kavita Parihar, nephrologist, going to a dialysis unit without proper qualified support can lead to under-dialysis, if the veins through which one is dialyzed are not punctured properly, it could lead to local complications and result in the loss of a limb. It could also lead to acquiring secondary infections that could be life threatening and could make one unfit for undergoing transplant later on.
Life in India, it is said, is cheap.
Sometimes decisions are taken based on pricing and not by finding out relevant facts and the subsequent consequences. Lack of proper awareness and absence of regulatory controls encourages fly by night operators. Should we continue to have implicit trust in the technicians and the instructors? Should we as consumers not be more aware? It is, after all, our lives that are at stake!
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