Affiliation:
1. School of Health, Polytechnic of Porto, Portugal
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a mental illness with intense effects on a person's life. In addition to the psychiatric symptoms, patients with schizophrenia generally have multiple somatic comorbidities, such as cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. High prevalence of an unhealthy lifestyle (smoking habits, poor diets, sedentarism) contributes to the increased risk in these patients. Even though schizophrenia treatment focuses on medication in conjunction with talking therapies, it is essential to address lifestyle choices. Nowadays there is a large body of evidence that suggests that physical activity and exercise can help improve not only schizophrenia patients' physical health but also their mental and psychological wellbeing. This chapter addresses the guidelines for physical activity and exercise interventions for schizophrenia, presenting some programs which combine exercise and therapies to treat schizophrenia, including some novel digital approaches. This chapter also gives some recommendations for an active lifestyle clinical integration providing a literature review on the subject.