What If I Have A Chronic Condition? How Can I Exercise?
- Duncan Rinehart
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 2
by Duncan Rinehart, PhD, NBC-HWC, ACSM-CPT
“I read your blog on dealing with and recovering from an injury. But what do I do if I have chronic conditions like peripheral neuropathy, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, dementia, osteoporosis, things like that?” she said. It’s a good question and for many of us it contains some frustration at the physical and cognitive limitations that we often gain as we age.
In some ways the answers are simple:
start with what you can do
progress slowly
find alternatives to exercises that hurt or that you can’t do
get a good trainer or physical therapist to help you.
And the answers are also more complex. Here are two examples.
Start small, build slow
A friend who had gone through chemotherapy for breast cancer gained weight and lost muscle mass. She was on medication to keep the cancer from returning. But the medication was making it hard for her to return to exercise. Even though it was a struggle for her at first, she started with a few simple exercises as often as she could. Gradually, over months, she was able to build back up to an energy level where she could exercise the major muscle groups. She began to regain some of the strength she lost. The cancer has not returned but her energy and strength have.
Customize to your needs
A client found that she had osteoporosis when she had a pretty minor fall but broke her wrist. After the fall she was cautious. She was afraid of falling again, that she would break something more serious. Her doctor encouraged her to do strength training, fall prevention exercises, and walk more to slow the bone loss and help prevent another fall. She started strength and balance exercises with very little weight or no weight at all (body-weight exercises). With the help of her trainer she increased weight and repetitions slowly. She also carried a bottle of water in a backpack when she walked to gently stress her spine, hips and legs. Subsequent bone scans showed no increase in bone loss.
Wrap-up
There is strong and mounting evidence of the benefits of exercise for many if not all chronic conditions that are common in aging. And as the two examples given above point out, modifying the exercise to the person and their abilities is important. Find a good physical therapist or personal trainer who is experienced in working with seniors to help you develop and sustain exercise that you can do. Whatever chronic conditions you have at this point just move what you can. Gradually you may be able to increase how much you move and perhaps eventually be able to move more parts of your body as well.
Resources
Here are a few links to resources that may help you:
