By the measures that count, Geraldine Vinall, 76, from Milton Keynes, had a poor quality of life. She was living with advanced osteoarthritis and chronic pain. Geraldine was labeled “severely disabled” and told her spine was crumbling.
Unfortunately for Geraldine, pain was nothing new. The 76-year-old had dealt with neck and back pain throughout her adult life, following polio and a horse-riding accident when she was a child, and a car accident at age 21, which injured her neck.
Diagnosed with advanced and severe osteoarthritis in her cervical spine in her early 30s, Geraldine struggled with increasing pain, stiffness and immobility, despite regular dog walking and visits to a chiropractor.
She attributes the first COVID-19 I lock away his realization that he still had a life ahead of him that he wanted to enjoy to the fullest.
“Women on both sides of my family live well into their nineties and I wanted to be able to plan for the next 15 to 20 years,” she explained.
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After weighing her options, she sought help to manage her pain and was referred by her GP to a community health provider, Connect Health. She had a phone consultation with one of Connect’s MSK (musculoskeletal) doctors, Charlotte Hopper.
Charlotte said: “During that first conversation, Geraldine had a lot to say – she is a very cheerful and motivated woman, but she felt she had been ignored by medical professionals in the past. She had been told that her spine was crumbling, that she had been passed from one person to another and had never been offered any real solution. She needed reassurance on how to manage her pain and understand what was going on with her conditions.”
The couple began initial individual fitness sessions, before Geraldine joined small group classes with other patients, led by Charlotte.
New starts
A member of the gym for many years, Geraldine had lost her confidence and belief that it was the right path for her. The decline in results had led to lower expectations and her motivation was becoming more difficult to maintain. She and Charlotte laughed about “needing WD40 for your joints.”
Charlotte explained that “loading weights and strength training stimulate synovial fluid, Nature’s WD40, into stiff and painful joints to optimize flexibility and reduce pain.”
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This was a new approach to using a gym for physio and rehabilitation.
Geraldine said she imagined physio would be “a little massage and maybe an ultrasound,” neither of which had worked in the past, “but Charlotte’s idea made sense and hope started to come back.”
Charlotte continued, “On the first one-on-one, it took me 20 minutes to get her on the elliptical, I think she was weighing me. But once she got going, she made incredible progress. We then moved on to small group classes, which I think was the solution for her. She is quite competitive, so she would be watching the other patients (most were younger than her) and wishing she was better.
“In the beginning, I barely did squats, but soon I was lifting 4kg weights and then lifting 8kg kettlebells and starting to squat. He flew through the circuits that we established for the group.”
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The pair stayed in touch outside of class through app updates, where Geraldine would keep Charlotte informed of her progress as she worked through the exercises on her own.
Geraldine bid the group farewell, as she felt that there were others who needed the place more than she did. She now keeps up her workouts at home and at the gym, where she also plans to start virtual spin classes.
In addition to giving her a new lease on life, weight training has relieved some of Geraldine’s chronic pain.
Now he lifts 8kg kettlebells and has a “life plan” to get her well into the nineties.
“I have gradually changed focus over the years of [looking after] everyone else take care of me. I am finally, truly, independent, although I am still evolving.”
The evidence suggests that Geraldine’s story is not a fluke. Regular weight-bearing exercise is linked to a lower risk of death from any cause, with the exception of cancer, suggests research conducted in older adults and published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Commenting on Geraldine’s story, Dr. Graeme Wilkes, Medical Director of Connect Health, said: “Resistance exercises that use gravity or weights to strengthen muscles are commonly recognized as contributing to musculoskeletal health and recovery from injury, as well as for some in ‘looking good.’ What is not well known is that research has found that muscle-strengthening activities are independently associated with a variety of better health outcomes, including increased life expectancy, improvements in heart function and mental health.
“Mental and physical wellness will reduce sensitivity to pain, which undoubtedly helped Geraldine and would for many in pain.
“Recent data suggests that only 10 to 30 percent of adults meet the recommendations for muscle-strengthening activity.
“As we age, there is no age at which people should become sedentary: resistance exercise should remain a part of life until the grave, providing a better quality of life until that day. This should include resistance exercise of the whole body, that is, arms and legs.
“In addition to older people continuing to resist weights, their friends and family should encourage this and not conspire to cut back on such essential wellness training. Seeing an older person in the gym should be a normal event.”
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