ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the people with physical disabilities. The most exercise intervention studies now include measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), as well as traditional measures of disability and disease. Exercise training has been shown to improve perceptions of physical health and symptom severity across a wide range of populations. Physicians and health promoters are increasingly using physical activity as a therapeutic modality to treat disease and disability and as a preventive strategy to promote health and prevent health problems. Exercise can have positive effects on numerous objective measures of a person's health status and physical fitness. Exercise might improve HRQoL by enhancing people's self-efficacy to control their health, as well as aspects of their lives that might be hampered by illness or disability. HRQoL reflects the perceived goodness of the various aspects of one's life that can be affected by health and health interventions.
