Exercise physio helps elderly reverse osteoporosis

Here's how to fix ageing bones and get the spring back in your step

TRANSFORMED: Eve Plant, 75, receives instructions from Jessica Ebbersen, of Nordica Health in Maroochydore. Picture: John McCutcheon

SWEDISH-BORN exercise physiologist Jess Ebbersten is using science-based targeted exercises to help people reduce and even reverse osteoporosis, strengthening one muscle group at a time.

Eve Plant, 75, walked with a hunch and "hobble”, before she had a double hip replacement, and began Onero Program exercises.

She had been investigating ways of helping herself as she waited for the hip operation, when her friend Ms Ebbersten suggested she try resistance-based training.

Ms Ebbersten now runs Nordica Health, based at Maroochydore, but at the time had been involved with The Bone Clinic, which introduced Ms Plant to Onero.

Ms Plant said her hip joints had no definition, her bones were "eroding” from osteoarthritis and she started using walking poles to keep her posture and make mobility easier.

After her hip replacement Ms Plant saw a presentation by The Bone Clinic, which came to the Sunshine Coast in 2016.

Its Osteoporosis Australia-endorsed resistance training program is used by physiotherapists and exercise physiologists to fit a treatment program to individuals.

Nordica Health runs classes every day out of the Maroochydore CWA Hall on Memorial Ave.

Ms Ebbersten says a minimum of two sessions per week using Onero training had "amazing” results.

When a person exercises, fluid in the bone vibrates and that signals to bone cells to "lay down bone and make it stronger”, Ms Ebbersten said.

She assesses every individual then introduces them to the Onero program at a level they are able to manage.

In this way, over time, her clients safely grow and strengthen their muscles and bones.

Ms Plant said after three years doing the exercises she had seen a huge change in her body.

"Now, if I trip, I bounce. I don't fall in a heap,” she said.

Ms Plant's most recent bone mineral density scan showed a change from osteoporosis to osteopenia (a less severe condition) in her lumbar spine.

"Bone mineral density normally reduces as we grow older, and people who are declining normally move from osteopenia to osteoporosis. But Eve has gone the other way,” Ms Ebbersten said.

She said there had been many other benefits, including for her self-confidence and balance.

Ms Plant said in the 12 months before her hip replacement, "I got this really bony bum”.

"I would need a cushion to sit down if it was a hard seat,” she said.

"The marvellous thing for me was through doing the training program and the strengthening, my bum came back.”

While two sessions per week are recommended, members of Nordica Health can attend unlimited classes per week in their membership.

"The Australian national guidelines recommends that everyone does at least two resistance-based sessions per week,” Ms Ebbersten said. "Everyone can benefit.”