The Atlanta Journal-Constitution-----Friday, July 10, 2009

By Sharise M. Darby

TAI CHI SETS RUNNER BACK ON FEET

Chinese martial art soothes arthritis pain with slow movements.

Last year, after running for 30 years and in 19 Peachtree Road Races, Chris Lahowitch heard her doctors say she had to give it up for good. Her arthritic knees couldn’t take it.

Even in the midst of discouragement, Lahowitch, a 63-year-old psychotherapist from Decatur, was determined to find an alternative exercise method. That’s when she discovered tai chi, a Chinese martial art that focuses on fluid motion and meditation. Lahowitch enrolled in tai chi classes in January and immediately started experiencing less pain in her knees.

“It was like a miracle,” she said. “I took tai chi with the intention of substituting running, and after only six months it actually helped me start running again.”

Dr. Patience White, chief public health officer with the national Arthritis Foundation and a practicing rheumatologist, said success stories like this are common. Tai chi is beneficial, White said, because it does both things required to diminish pain —- stretches and strengthening all the muscles around the joints.

“I recommend it all the time,” she said. “As a doctor, you want to recommend something to people that you know is evidence-based. It has been studied and shown to be beneficial to people with arthritis and not harm them.”

In a study released in June by the George Institute for International Health in Australia, researchers found tai chi to have positive health benefits for those with musculoskeletal pain. Most participants enrolled in a 12-week class, and reported their level of pain and disability after completing the program. The results suggested that tai chi reduced pain and disability.

“This research should reassure people with musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis to seek exercise to relieve the pain,” said Amanda Hall, an author of the study. “The fact that tai chi is inexpensive, convenient, enjoyable and conveys other psychological and social benefits supports the use of this type of intervention for pain conditions.”...

Cate Morrill, a tai chi instructor in Atlanta, says nearly half her students attend classes because they have arthritis or joint pain. Morrill is the director of Rising Phoenix Tai Chi studio, and she also teaches physical therapy doctoral candidates at Emory University how to use tai chi in their physical therapy practice.

“We move them slowly and smoothly,” she said. “This pumps and creates synovial fluid. It lubricates the joints like oil lubricates a car.”

Lahowitch attends Morrill’s class on Thursday evenings and practices every day at home. Lahowitch said that before she became involved in the art of tai chi she tried yoga and physical therapy, but neither helped as much. She said she enjoys tai chi because it focuses on the pain in her knees and it manifests the “chi,” or life energy, in her body.

“I’ve seen an incredible change. … I didn’t expect it,” she said. “I might even run a marathon.”

Lahowitch had decided to run in last Saturday’s Peachtree Road Race before suddenly coming down with bronchitis. But, she plans to continue tai chi and running, and she hopes to start training for next year’s road race soon.

“I am going to get my 20th T-shirt if it kills me,” she said.

Now she can walk to the mail center in her apartment complex or to the local shopping mall without a cane or walker. She's driving again. And she volunteers at church as a lay minister. "Tai chi gives you the freedom to do whatever you need to do," she says.

Freedom: That's something most of us take for granted every day. But seniors will tell you just how important that freedom is. Tai chi has given Padgett the confidence to go about her daily activities without the paralyzing fear that she's one step away from a bad fall.

Research shows that tai chi can help strengthen muscles and helps keep older people more agile. But the studies also show that other types of exercise, even a daily walk, can help improve balance and overall fitness — and might help reduce the risk that an elderly person will take a spill.

Falls are dangerous, deadly

Falls can be dangerous at any age, but an older person who slips runs the risk of serious injury. The latest analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that more than 13,700 older Americans died from falls in 2003. "Falls are the leading cause of injury death among the elderly," says Neil Alexander, a balance researcher at the University of Michigan.

William Haskell, a fitness researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and his colleagues recruited 424 frail seniors ages 70 to 89. Half the recruits were told to walk five days a week for 30 minutes at a moderate pace. Seniors in that group also did stretches and got some weight training. The rest of the seniors just got advice on how to live a healthier life.

After a year, the workout group scored significantly better on tests of overall fitness, balance and the ability to easily manage a quarter-mile walk.

"If you can't walk a quarter of a mile, it's unlikely you'll be able to go to the grocery store," Haskell says. Seniors who have trouble with such basic tasks are at risk of losing their independence, he adds.

Balance problems can be traced to an injury or, in many cases, the aging process itself, Haskell says. People start to lose muscle in mid-life — a process that worsens with each passing year. Seniors who don't work out can lose even more muscle, and by age 75 they're unsteady and prone to falls.

Once older people develop balance problems, they start to avoid activities that require a lot of walking, Alexander says. That can set up a cycle of inactivity, muscle weakness and more unsteadiness down the line, he says.

To interrupt the cycle, Alexander and his colleagues offered a fitness program to 162 at-risk seniors. Half the group got training in tai chi, which had been modified to help unsteady seniors. The other recruits took a specialized balance class that focused on increasing step length and speed. The seniors performed several tests at the beginning and the end of the study, including one in which they were timed while standing on one foot and another in which they had to step rapidly.

After 10 weeks, the team found that people in both groups had improved, but those in the balance program did slightly better. The study appears in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Both tai chi and the specialized exercise class helped seniors step quickly and surely — and that might help them avoid falls, Alexander says. "These programs both work."

Which one is better? The researchers don't know yet, but many previous studies have shown that tai chi's slow rotational movements may help improve balance. For example:

•A 1996 study showed that seniors who did tai chi reduced their risk of falling by nearly half.

•A 2006 study reported in the Journal of Gerontology by Steven Wolf at the Emory University School of Medicine showed that tai chi significantly improved balance in more than 300 older people.

Results aren't instant

Tai chi is especially good at improving an unsteady walk, because the movements often require a weight shift, Wolf says. He says it takes three months of tai chi for someone who is really frail to regain strength and flexibility. "In Western medicine, we expect instant results," he says. "But that's not what happens here."

Cate Morrill, an instructor at Rising Phoenix T'ai Chi, a tai chi studio in Atlanta, says she has worked with older people who can't stand without holding onto a chair for support. After three months in class, they often can go through the basic tai chi routine with fluid, strong and steady movements.

The Chinese think that tai chi, when practiced regularly, helps the mind as well as the body. Padgett says the practice has helped clear away the brain fog that made it hard for her to balance her checkbook after the 2003 car accident.

But best of all, Padgett says, tai chi has given her, if not a swagger, at least a better way of walking firmly through the world: "I have my confidence back."

Mary Ann studies with Harvey Meisner of Rising Phoenix T'ai Chi!

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