Beating Arthritis Exercise Classes At Southside Senior Activity Center Help People In Pain

Elfie Finney’s arthritis gets so bad some days it takes her two hours to get going in the morning.

At 84, she has suffered from painful swelling in her arms and shoulders for most of her life.

“It comes and goes,” Finney said.

Like many arthritis sufferers, Finney doesn’t let it stop her from getting the exercise her doctor ordered.

She is one of a dozen seniors enrolled in a new exercise class for arthritis patients at the Southside Senior Activity Center.

A lot of people with arthritis know that regular moderate exercise builds muscles and increases flexibility. The Southside group said the workouts help them live more normal lives and ease their pain.

The twice-weekly sessions are designed by the Arthritis Foundation and taught by a college student qualified in the program.

“I think it’s a tremendous class,” Finney said. “It helps me so much.”

The program is called People with Arthritis Can Exercise, or PACE.

This is a class where the students are older than the teacher. Most of them suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammation of the joints which is triggered by a defect in the autoimmune system.

It’s the only class of its kind in Spokane. Other exercise classes for arthritis patients are done in warm swimming pools, said instructor Rhonda Miller.

Students must get a doctor’s approval before they join the class but, Miller said, “Most doctors are delighted they are going to go out and get some exercise.”

Miller starts her class with a warmup walk. The students circle the room several times until their heart rates increase.

Then Miller gives a routine caution: “Listen to your body.” If there is any pain, she said, stop the exercise, or back off on the stretches. The workout should be comfortable and pain free.

Students stretch their arms, legs, neck, shoulders, back and even their toes and fingers. Some of the exercises are done sitting; others standing next to a chair.

She had them reach behind their backs like they are zipping up a shirt. “Just reach until you feel you don’t want to go any more,” Miller told them.

For strengthening muscles, she went through a series of repetitive leg and arm motions. The students held onto plastic pint water bottles to add weight to their arms. Then, they marched in place for several minutes, swinging their arms back and forth at the same time.

There’s even one exercise called “the squeezy butt.”

These exercises sound easy, but the students all breathed deeply during the workout, a good indication they were getting their blood pumping.

Medical researchers believe tension and stress may also be factors in arthritis and its related conditions.

Miller spent the last few minutes of class having her students listen to a tape of the ocean with their eyes closed. Then, she told them to imagine different things like sitting on a warm sandy beach with seagulls flying around them.

One of the students, who did not want to give her name, said she suffers from both arthritis and osteoporosis.

Weak bones in her neck sometimes release small spurs when she turns to one side or the other, causing more pain, she said.

“I need to do this because I’m going to get to the point where I can’t turn my neck at all,” she said. “I would encourage other people with osteoporosis to try this, too.”

The students said they don’t want to join a gym for exercise because most of the equipment and classes are not designed to help them.

Instead, Miller’s class is carefully attuned to the problems of arthritis patients and focuses on techniques to help them cope with the disorder, they said.

Walt Strickland, 75, is an Air Force veteran who has suffered from the related illness of lupus for more than a decade.

“It was getting so bad I couldn’t turn the key in the car,” he said.

Now, with treatment from his doctor and the regular workouts, he has the condition under control, he said.

He and his wife, Betty, attend the class together.

Betty Strickland, who has rheumatoid arthritis, said she tried warm-water aquatics downtown, but likes the new class at the senior center because it’s more convenient.

The class at the South Side center is about half full now. Miller said she has room for at least a dozen more students.

“They all come in here with a good attitude,” she said. “When they leave, they feel good about themselves.”