EngAge Wellness program aids osteoarthritis patients

Osteoarthritis (OA) hurts older adults in two ways.

First, it literally hurts. The pain and stiffness associated with lower-extremity arthritis can prove debilitating, and billions of dollars are spent on knee replacements and treatments of falls.

But it goes beyond that, for OA sufferers.

“They hurt,” said Jeannie Hannan, Ph.D., EngAge Wellness program manager at the Home Instead Center for Successful Aging, “and then they don’t move, and when they don’t move, it snowballs.”

Everything gets worse.

Older adults’ bodies deteriorating, thanks to not moving, as a result of OA, can eventually contribute to such chronic conditions as heart disease and diabetes, according to studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But now EngAge Wellness is offering Fit and Strong! to help Omaha’s older adults fight OA.

Fit and Strong! is an evidenced-based fitness/self-management program developed by a University of Illinois-Chicago team in part through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. And a UIC study published in The Gerontologist provides further proof that the program works.

It kicked off at EngAge Wellness on the UNMC campus on Oct. 26.

“We got such a good response,” Dr. Hannan said, “we had to offer three classes instead of one.”

Fit and Strong! is an eight-week program, meeting for 90 minutes three times a week. It’s an hour of exercise, Dr. Hannan said, low-impact aerobics and some strength and balance training. Then, 30 minutes on behavior change, health education and group problem solving.

The goals are to manage arthritis, decrease join pain and stiffness, get people moving safely, and perhaps most of all, to get them to keep doing it, even after classes end.

The UIC study group saw a 48.5 percent increase in exercise adherence.

Fit and Strong! is among the programs being studied by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs Medicare, in order to understand the effects of wellness programs on the health and wellbeing of Medicare members.

The next class is scheduled to start Jan. 11 and will be subsidized by the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging (ENOA) for individuals 60 years and over. For more information, call EngAge Wellness at 402-552-7210.