Prescribing chair yoga for osteoarthritis pain

For 30 million people, that nagging pain in their knee or neck or shoulder is osteoarthritis. And the pain can be disabling. We spend billions every year on over-the-counter and prescription meds. But a Florida researcher thinks she has another, drug-free option.

Nancy Motto has suffered with osteoarthritis for nearly 15 years.

“I was taking a lot of ibuprofen. If they said take it every six hours, that’s what I did. I didn’t even think about it. I just took more,” Nancy told Ivanhoe.

Besides the ibuprofen, Nancy took five other medications every day for high blood pressure, diabetes and a clogged artery. She isn’t alone.

Juyoung Park, PhD, Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University shared, “Statistically, seniors are taking five to six different medications at the same time.”

In fact, 46 percent of seniors in their 70’s take that many. Professor Park manages pain in seniors and she launched her own study to find a good, drug-free way to ease osteoarthritis pain. She says chair yoga is the answer.

Park explains, “Pain is really significantly reduced. Also pain interference has been decreased during the intervention and also even during the follow-up.”

In the trial, 80 percent of the patients doing chair yoga decreased their pain.

Nancy says, “It has improved my life. It’s improved the way I feel.”

Not only that, but chair yoga dropped her high blood pressure low enough for Nancy to drop three different hypertension drugs.

“And now there’s no blood pressure medicine,” Nancy said smiling.

Who knew a chair could be a pain killer?

Park says her study also found chair yoga improves mobility and fatigue for seniors. She is currently studying how chair yoga can affect people with dementia.

Contributors to this news report include: Milvionne Chery, Producer; Roque Correa, Editor.