People With Disabilities Struggle to Stay Fit;
Some Gyms Offer Specialized Equipment
Monday, April 16, 2007    0825 PDT

CHARLESTON, West Virginia --  Three times a week,
Vince Stankoski is lifted from his wheelchair onto a
stationary bicycle. Electrodes are attached to 3 of his
muscle groups, coaxing his paralyzed legs to pedal.

It is the highlight of his workout.

"I like that I can look down at my legs and still
see muscles there," says the Allentown,
Pennsylvanit, man who lost the use of his legs
after falling from a tree in 1998.

Apart from the bike, he also likes using the upper
body weights, which come equipped with a seat that
swivels away so he can move his wheelchair into
position and lift.

Stankoski is one of the fortunate ones. He belongs
to a gym specifically designed to accommodate
people with disabilities.

Few other disabled people have that option. The
basics of good health - diet and exercise - often
present challenges for people with disabilities, a
situation made more difficult by a common
assumption that disability and poor health go hand
in hand.

The result, according to the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, is that people with
disabilities _ roughly 19 percent of all Americans
_ are far less healthy than the average American.
Since those with disabilities are the biggest users
of medical services, that disparity could be
costing hundreds of millions of tax dollars a year.

Those costs are likely to increase as the baby
boomer generation grows older and more susceptible
to disabilities.

"There's an enormous number of barriers that people
with disabilities face when they try to become
healthy," says Dr. James Rimmer, director of the
National Center on Physical Activity & Disability,
and a professor at the University of Illinois at
Chicago.

Those barriers range from health clubs that view
people with disabilities as potential liabilities to
public health campaigns that bypass them entirely.

"There's a mind-set that people with disabilities
are also ill and they shouldn't be exercising,"
says Jerry McCole, who heads the National
Disability Sports Alliance. The group promotes
athletic competition and physical activity among
people with cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury,
stroke and other physically disabling conditions.

"It's like any minority group _ out of sight, out
of mind," McCole says.

But people with disabilities are increasingly hard
to overlook. In a first-of-its-kind study released
last fall, the CDC found that those with
disabilities were more than 4 times more likely to
be in fair or poor health than those who are not
disabled. Those with disabilities were also more
likely to smoke and to be obese and physically
inactive. In West Virginia, the numbers are even
worse.

Deborrah Pittman, head of the computer science
department at Bluefield State College in West
Virginia, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in
1997 and sometimes uses a wheelchair. She lives
in a state where 1 in 4 adults is disabled, the
highest rate in the country.

Pittman says she's lucky that a gym in Bluefield,
near the Virginia border, has 1 or 2 pieces of
equipment she can use to get an upper body workout.

Part of the problem, according to experts, is the
common assumption that people with disabilities
are simply unable to take on physical tasks.

"People with disabilities can be healthy, and
people without disabilities can be unhealthy," says
John Crews, a lead scientist for the CDC's
Disability and Health Team. But the perception
persists, even in public health, that the opposite
is true.

"Public health has a kind of uncomfortable
relationship with disability. People with
disabilities tend to be viewed by people in public
health as a failure of primary prevention," Crews
said.

That's starting to change. In January, Rimmer and a
group of doctors and advocates launched the
Inclusive Fitness Coalition to urge private health
clubs and gyms to make universal accessibility part
of their basic service.

At places such as Optimal Fitness, where Stankoski
works out, that's already happening.

Optimal Fitness is part of Good Shepherd, an acute
care rehabilitation hospital. The fitness center is
open not only to hospital patients and employees,
but also to anyone with a qualifying disability.

There's no nearby exercise alternative for people
like Stankoski. The next nearest place is 60 miles
away in Philadelphia.

"Things changed really fast for me," Stankoski
says, recalling the accident that paralyzed him.

But rehabilitation and regular fitness have helped
him to stay trim and muscular.

"Since I started here, everything's been going
good," he says.
___
On the Net:

CDC Disability Chartbook:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dh/chartbook/default.htm

Inclusive Fitness Coalition:
http://www.incfit.org

... What's the difference between an alcoholic and a wino?
... An alcololic uses a glass.