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Group seeks better fitness access
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Town of Menasha resident Keith Niemuth tries out the Monarch, an exercise machine for upper-body cardiovascular workouts, in the outpatient physical therapy room at Mercy Medical Center on Wednesday in Oshkosh. Niemuth, who is in a wheelchair, is working to get a fitness center for both able-bodied and disabled people. Post-Crescent photo by Sharon Cekada
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 For more information on planning for a disabilities-friendly fitness center in the Fox Cities area, call Perry at 920-585-1606, or Nerenhausen at 920-731-9391.


 


Posted April 19, 2007



 Group seeks better fitness access

 
Proposed facility would provide universal workout space

 
By Ed Lowe


 
Post-Crescent staff writer

 OSHKOSH It's not Keith Niemuth's inability to walk that has kept him from going to the gym.


 It's just that there is no gym in the area that meets the needs of Niemuth, 52, who uses a wheelchair since falling from a faulty farm silo in 1980.


 "They've got all these levers and pulleys in the way so you can't get close enough when you're in a wheelchair," Niemuth said Wednesday while visiting the Oakwood Rehab outpatient gym at Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh.


 It's the sole workout center in the Fox Valley where people with significant physical limitations don't feel out of place. Yet its hours are limited and a long drive away for Niemuth, who lives in the Town of Menasha.


 Amy Perry, the sparkplug for the campaign that established the disabilities-friendly Universal Playground at Appleton's Memorial Park in 2004, hopes to make that drive unnecessary.


 Perry, who also uses a wheelchair, has recruited area medical rehabilitation professionals and the medical equipment supplier RehabTECH in an effort she hopes will result in the only free-standing facility of its type in the region. For now, she and Niemuth get their exercise on machines in their respective basements.


 "We don't want a place that's disabilities-only because we don't want to be segregated," Perry said. "We want to fit into a facility for everyone."


 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.


 Private and commercial facilities tend to lack the proper equipment and the on-site medically trained staff required by people recovering from recent heart attacks and strokes, said Chris Barczak, a Mercy Medical Center physical therapist who shares Perry's vision.


 "We are hoping this new facility would be staffed by therapists or therapy aides who are trained to work with people with disabilities," Barczak said. "We're looking for a safe way for people who have health issues to be able to work out and be supervised."


 Barczak said he will collect and prepare data aimed at measuring the potential demand for the universal fitness center. If the numbers support the plan, the group will use them to market an eventual capital campaign, he said.


 Perry said she's certain the demand for the new center is out there. It also would offer relief to the parents and guardians of people who can use existing facilities, but only while under constant supervision.


 "While my daughter is getting physical therapy in a swimming pool, it would be nice if I could work out too," said Lisa Nerenhausen, who's part of the concept group.


 Perry said disability-friendly workout centers are in short supply throughout much of the country. However, their popularity is shown by the success of the nonprofit, Minneapolis-based Courage Center, which operates three fitness centers and several rehabilitation-related programs in Minnesota.


 Perry said the Courage Center model represents an ideal, though her vision might be accomplished through any number of options involving new or existing facilities. Right now, she said, all she has is the dream and a growing group of people ready to do some heavy lifting.


 
Ed Lowe can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 293, or elowe@postcrescent.com  (Related)  . The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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