Southern Indiana Living JanFeb 2014

Your health in focus 2014
Stretch to save your life
SilverSneakers classes ofer hope,
health and healing for seniors
Story // Abby Laub
Three years ago 63-year-old Connie
Wright contracted an extremely
rare and serious lung
disease that doctors said probably
would have killed her had she not
discovered an efective treatment.
Several days a week she visits with her
friends, practices chair yoga and enjoys
herself at the gym. That is her treatment.
It is SilverSneakers at the Washington
County YMCA.
SilverSneakers is a senior citizen oriented
workout that focuses on diferent
areas, including muscle strength, range
of motion, breathing, stretching, relaxation,
mental sharpness, cardiovascular
conditioning and socialization.
Many of the activities are done seated
in a chair or standing with a chair available
for balance. Tools like resistance
bands, hand weights and resistance balls
are used for the 45-minute classes.
“My doctor said, ‘How did you come
to choose that?’ I said that it just kind of
felt right,” Wright said. “I just thought I
can not see how that wouldn’t help me.
He said, ‘Show me some of your moves’,
and when he saw what we did in Silver-
Sneakers he said I couldn’t be doing anything
better.”
Wright, a Salem native, was diagnosed
with Mycobacterium avium complex
(MAC) Lung Disease. It is extremely rare
and causes severe damage to her lungs
and airways.
She said she was on a strong drug
cocktail of antibiotics for 20 months and
was fnally deemed “clear” at the end of
last year. But the resulting damage left it
difcult for her to clear her airways so exercise
and daily life were not easy.
She heard about SilverSneakers Yoga
Stretch and thought it might be helpful.
“I thought about the yoga and the
stretching, and knew it was all about
deep breathing and contortions, so I
started doing it on my own,” she said.
“The breathing is huge, and the relaxation.
You are breathing in all of these positions,
it has allowed my lungs to drain.
When your lungs don’t drain you’re
prone to infection.”
Wright said since she began doing
Yoga Stretch last year she has not once
gotten an infection like pneumonia or
January/February 2014 • 44
Above: Washington County Family YMCA members participate in a SilverSneakers Yoga
Stretch class. Below: YMCA instructors led SilverSneakers classes at the 2013 Washington
County Fair’s Senior Citizen’s Day.
bronchitis. Previously, she had three infections
in a span of four months.
In addition to MAC Lung Disease,
Wright had Polio when she was two and
has resulting issues with her legs. As a
result she was resistant to exercise but
said that through the program at the Y
her lower back and legs have “improved
signifcantly”.
“When you have weak legs your lower
back gets pounded, so it’s helped that,
too,” Wright said, adding that she has become
much more limber since beginning
the program in April of 2013.
Wright said she knows many other
people in the SilverSneakers program
and it addresses all of their issues.
She said there is a 30 percent chance
that her disease will come back and that
she is always nervous about it, “but I’m
very hopeful. I feel like with what I’m
doing it surely can’t come back.”
“I think the SilverSneakers stuf is
marvelous,” she added. “It is so important
to the others who do it. It just needs
to be promoted. It’s very important.”
Washington County YMCA Silver-
Sneakers Instructor Dina Northern
echoed the importance of the program
for the senior citizen population.
“I fnd that the exercise makes them
feel better, overall their outlook on