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A petite and soft-spoken Suzanne Spitzer leads a group of women through a series of stretches during a recent yoga class at Bon Secours St. Francis Eastside Hospital in Greenville.
It’s not your run-of-the-mill yoga class. This one is for women, all of whom are cancer survivors.
“Get yourself released into the floor,” Spitzer tells them.
The lights in the room dim as the women lay flat on their backs on mats with their arms spread out. Soft instrumental music also helps them unwind.
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“Yoga quiets the mind and body,” Spitzer said.
The class was founded seven years ago by Margaret Edwards, oncology rehab specialist at St. Francis.
“The yoga for cancer survivors is more individualized,” Edwards said. “It is a restorative/recovery yoga rather than a fast, competitive yoga.”
Such programs and classes designed for cancer survivors are growing, said Kim Hein, integrative health specialist and program coordinator at Greenville Hospital System Life Center. Research shows that patients are seeking additional options for improved health, Hein said.
“(Cancer) patients are looking for other alternatives to complement their conventional treatments,” she said. “People feel that when they combine them, they have an overall better sense of wellbeing.”
Such classes empower patients. “They feel like they are taking some responsibility to improve their health,” she said.
Anne Jackson of Greenville said she’s been attending the yoga class at St. Francis for 4 1/2 years. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2003, Jackson underwent a number of surgeries.
“My tendons under my arms became very tight,” she said. “I think when I was diagnosed, I was like a little wounded bird with a broken wing. I didn’t want to move my arm and cause too much circulation in the left side of my chest.”
Practicing yoga, though, has helped, she said.
“It’s been wonderful. It’s so therapeutic... and has helped restore some areas where I had problems. You will be amazed at what your body will be able to do gradually,” Jackson said.
Exercise — whether it’s yoga, pilates or water therapy — can help reduce stress, anxiety and lingering pain associated with surgery and chemotherapy, she said.
Each person can work at her own level, Hein said.
“We have programs that cancer patients can use like Tai Chi classes or massage therapy,” she said. “But they’re also for people who don’t have cancer.”
At her studio on Woodruff Road in Greenville, pilates instructor Marion Knackstedt works with breast cancer survivors as well as traditional clients. Knackstedt said she saw how much pilates helped a friend who was a cancer survivor. She decided to learn more and was certified through The Pink Ribbon Program, a pilates based post-operative program for cancer survivors.
“I am realizing my clients’ very specific needs require my full and undivided attention.” The training duration is adjusted to account for changes in strength and treatments.
In 2002, Doreen Puglisi, a New Jersey-based exercise physiologist, founded The Pink Ribbon Program.
“The program is designed as a rehab program and initially is designed as a much gentler form of exercise,” Puglisi said. As patients progress and feel better, “the goal of The Pink Ribbon Program is to enable the patient to really get back to what they were doing before.”
Puglisi’s 2004 breast cancer diagnosis motivated her even more to help others, she said.
“That’s when I created the certification program, because I realized how important it was.”
The two-day workshop arms instructors with information specific to people who have undergone cancer treatment.
“We spend a very large part going over medical background in terms of surgery and reconstruction and what implication that has for physical limitation, and we teach the (pilates) instructor the actual protocol that I designed that works as a rehab program,” she said.
While working with cancer survivors as a pilates instructor, Puglisi said she her research indicated there was a need to develop a program designed specifically for the needs of breast cancer survivors.
“Because I am an exercise physiologist, I am trained to work with people with special medical needs,” Puglisi said.
Though it’s up to the facility and instructor as to whether they offer individual or group sessions, “we usually recommend no more than six people in a group,” Puglisi said. Small groups can provide a level of camaraderie for clients.
“If you’re working with groups, as opposed to individuals, it does become its own support group for women who have gone through similar experiences. It’s a really nice aspect of it. Sometimes those groups stay together even as they are moving forward, and it creates a kind of a fitness friendship toward a general goal.”
That sentiment also rings true for women like Jackson who savors the time she spends in yoga class at St. Francis. “It’s like our own little support group too,” Jackson said. “We have a wonderful sisterhood in this class.”