“I have found the Mentor support to be very helpful and would recommend KiActiv® to anyone who wants to improve their health through more than just exercise.”
Michael, 67, Long COVID
Here are Michael’s thoughts on KiActiv® Health
“Earlier this year I suffered a severe attack of COVID-19 which involved an extensive stay in hospital including 6 weeks in intensive care. I was advised that there would be a 12/18-month recovery period and I wanted to find a way of monitoring my progress. As a result, I enrolled on the KiActiv® Health programme. I found the programme to be very useful in monitoring the progress of my recovery. I have been able to set achievable goals and the programme enables me to check how well I am doing in achieving these targets. This, in turn, gives me the motivation to increase my activity levels. I have found the mentoring support provided as part of the programme to be very helpful in terms of explaining how the system works, answering any queries I have had and providing the encouragement to achieve my targets. I recommend KiActiv® to anyone who wants to improve their health through more than just exercise.”
Michael’s Story
Michael was referred to KiActiv® after contracting COVID-19 at the start of 2021. He spent a total of 3-months in hospital, including 6-weeks in the intensive care unit (ICU). His doctors warned him that it would take 12-18 months to fully recover. A primary goal of his was to get back to his usual self, particularly focusing on improving his non-sedentary time and calorie burn.
Michael explained that he found the personalised online dashboard really useful and was logging on several times a day to monitor his activity. He knew it was important to gradually increase his activity and KiActiv® Health helped him stay motivated to keep going.
“It is improving though! It’s just time and effort…If I look at it at 5 o’clock at night, I go and move more if I haven’t done as much as I’d hoped. It’s helpful for that!”
Halfway through the programme, Michael felt his muscle strength was back to normal and it was only really the breathlessness that was continuing to hold him back. He explained that any continuous activity was fine, but if he increased the pace of certain activities, like walking, he would get breathless. However, he acknowledged that it was a gradual process and knew that as a result of effectively pacing his activities, he was significantly better than when came out of hospital, at which point it was a struggle to walk upstairs.
“I can now pretty much do everything I used to do but I don’t do it as quickly…I just want to keep up the progress, want to see things getting better”.
Over the course of the programme, he was able to rebuild his fitness and reduce his breathlessness, as well as doing more walking and going for more bike rides. He was able to successfully manage his long COVID symptoms, which helped him regain strength and muscle mass.
Throughout his programme, he significantly increased his physical activity across multiple dimensions, he explained that this was mainly from walking and doing more jobs around house and in the garden. Since completing KiActiv® Health, he has continued to engage every single day and has made further improvements to his physical activity.
