A HEALTHY, active lifestyle could be as simple as a trip to a software retailer, a group of Tasmanian physiotherapists heard yesterday.
They were attending a presentation on technology and activity at the University of Tasmania's Human Interface Technology Lab.
Newly appointed Centre for Research and Education in Active Living director Dr Stuart Smith spoke about easily accessible, cheap software like exercise-based video games that promoted a more active lifestyle
``Then there's the `fitbit', that costs about $60 and measures the amount of physical activity performed over time,'' Dr Smith said.
``The aim (of the presentation) was to see how we could use technologies to get people to be more physically active - how do we take your step counter and turn it into some sort of rewarding game play.''
Dr Smith said the challenge for physiotherapists was to encourage their patients to engage in repetitive rehabilitation exercises and said that gaming software was an important tool in achieving that.
With the advent of the National Broadband Network, you could easily have a centrally located physiotherapist playing a video game, in real time, with a patient at Smithton, or someone at Scottsdale playing a game of X-Box tennis with someone in a retirement village in another country, he said.