Most people with Arthritis
don’t get enough exercise
Newswise — People with arthritis
don’t exercise enough, and more than a third of adults with
arthritis don’t exercise at all, according to a study in the May
issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“People with arthritis are not
meeting physical activity recommendations made at the federal level
and by experts in the arthritis field,” said co-author Jennifer
Hootman, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“That’s not good, because we know that being more active is
beneficial for arthritis.”
While exercise has been shown to
decrease their pain, delay disability and improve gait and function,
people with arthritis are even more likely to be inactive than
adults in the general population.
“These findings are not
surprising,” said Kate Lorig, a professor at the Stanford University
School of Medicine, who was not involved with the study. “What’s
important for people with arthritis to realize is that the most
dangerous type of exercise is not to do any.”
Hootman and colleagues reviewed
data from the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, an ongoing
household survey designed to be representative of the U.S.
population. The survey included 6,829 people who had been diagnosed
with arthritis and 20,676 people without arthritis.
Just 37 percent of adults with
arthritis met the least stringent physical activity guidelines
established by a panel of experts in arthritis, physical activity
and public health in 2001 — a percentage similar to people without
arthritis.
But participation rates at the
more rigorous federally recommended levels of physical activity were
even lower for people with arthritis — 30 percent compared with 33
percent for people without arthritis.
Twenty percent of people with
arthritis reported performing some type of activity to strengthen
their muscles. Both aerobic and strengthening exercises have been
shown to help people with arthritis.
People with arthritis least likely
to be physically active were those who had difficulty walking up ten
stairs, grasping small objects, bending or kneeling, lifting ten
pounds or standing for two hours.
“We can’t tell from this survey
which came first—the inactivity or the problems with function,” said
Hootman. “But we do know that getting people with arthritis active
actually improves function.”
The authors say that fear of pain
and the misconception that exercise can harm joints are obstacles to
getting people with arthritis to exercise.
Other risk factors for inactivity
among people with arthritis included frequent anxiety or depression,
especially among women, and severe joint pain among men.
“If we can get people with arthritis over the initial pain barrier
by addressing their pain and getting them more active, they’ll
actually have less pain in the long term,” Hootman said