Which of the following strategies would be most appropriate for a client who has been working on incorporating physical activity into his lifestyle and has made it to the maintenance stage of behavior change?
a. plan for potential lapses
b. reiterate the long-term benefits of adherence
c. explain and personalize the inherent risks of physical activity
d. the client identify social support

The answer is letter b, “Reiterate the long-term benefits of adherence.”

Explanation:

Incorporating Physical Activity – This means increasing the amount of physical activity that you do every day. Some ways of increasing physical activity are as follows:

Walk to your office instead of driving a car.

Doing some stretches in the morning and in the evening.

Behavior Change – This is the process that a person experiences in order to change his behavior for the better. It consists of 6 stages namely:

1.Pre-contemplation stage –This is the stage of denial. The person doesn’t see any reason why he needs to change.

2.Contemplation stage- The person acknowledges his behavioral problem and tries to weigh the pros and cons of changing.

3.Preparation stage- The person now understands how beneficial change is. He starts planning to start acting.

4.Action stage- This is the time they modify their behavior. For example, the person who used to consume a lot of alcohol, stops drinking.

5.Maintenance stage- The person can now overcome his former behavior but still needs to be careful of temptations in order to avoid relapse.

6.Relapse- It is common for a person to fall back to the patterns of old behavior.  

As stated above, the client has already been working on incorporating physical activity into his daily life (this is the action stage). Then, he was able to make it to the maintenance stage. It is important to tell him to stick to his good behavior change and remind him over again about its benefits, for he might fall into relapse. So, the best strategy in this case is letter b.

c- dynamic stretching