Proper exercise program

Transcript: 

Matthew Jennings
Physiotherapist
Liverpool Hospital, NSW

So exercise is obviously very important. As a physiotherapist obviously I see exercise is as important. In inflammatory disease there’s two big differences. One of them is if you have hot, swollen, inflamed joints and your disease is not well controlled then you need to be very, very clear that that is not a good time to be forcing a joint into exercise. Maintaining activity is very critical. You shouldn’t stop doing everything or you will have other side effects. But it’s a time to be much more guarded or to seek a lot more advice about what sort of exercise is safe at that point in time.

However, it is very clear that the more exercise and the more you maintain your joints, your muscle strength to support your joints and your activity, then the healthier you are and often the better you manage your disease process. So you need to be looking at that very clearly. We talked about ankylosing spondylitis as well. Now that is slightly different if your disease is being well managed or if you’re on any of the new medications then the spinal stiffness does not seem to be as severe and we’re seeing people have excellent results from that.

The difference with that would be to maintain activity and to keep muscles and your other joints strong so that it can be affected. Your hips and shoulders are very related to your spine and the movement that you have in your body is very related to your spinal stiffness so if you’re finding difficulty moving in other joints then they’re things that you can really address with a proper exercise programme.