Andy Fleming has always loved the outdoors. He has fond memories of going on hunting and fishing trips with his father, and later he worked in a lumber yard and spent most of his free time on the beaches of his native California. After he lost his legs in an accident at age 24, he continued to search for ways to get outside.
“I was an outdoorsy guy before I was injured, and I’ve been trying to be an outdoorsy guy since then,” said Fleming, now 72 and an Atlanta resident. “That’s part of the transition when you incur a mobility impairment, and it never really goes away — you always want to be doing more different things and more outdoorsy things. So you look for different avenues to pursue adaptations so you can still have those experiences.”
Credit: Courtesy of Georgia State Parks
Credit: Courtesy of Georgia State Parks
While Fleming lost his legs at a young age — he was scurrying under a train to get home one night when the cars unexpectedly moved — he can certainly relate to what countless older Americans in Georgia and across the U.S. face as they deal with a loss of mobility. Many of them spent years running, hiking or enjoying the outdoors in other ways, only to potentially face the loss of those activities because of a health issue affecting their mobility.
“It’s a loss, just like anything else. Losing our abilities is a loss, and anger is part of the grief process. If we don’t express it, it turns to resentment over time,” said Aimee Copeland, who lost her hands, right foot and left leg to a bacterial infection stemming from a zip lining accident. She started the Atlanta-based Aimee Copeland Foundation to help those with mobility issues reconnect with the outdoors.
“I encourage people to talk about that and be open about what they’re losing. However it shows up, it is perfectly valid and OK.”
Credit: Courtesy of the Aimee Copeland Foundation
Credit: Courtesy of the Aimee Copeland Foundation
‘Total game-changer’
Through her foundation, Copeland has met many older adults seeking to stay active outdoors despite mobility issues.
“It takes a bit of creativity to adapt,” she said.
Someone with arthritis who loves to garden, for instance, can utilize lightweight spades, shears that require less grip pressure, or even implements that wrap around a person’s hand so they don’t have hold them.
“Most of all, I just encourage people to keep trying,” Copeland said. “A lot of things we can’t figure out at first, but if we just keep trying and experimenting, usually we can find a solution.”
Older adults with mobility issues can also benefit from all-terrain wheelchairs that are available at 20 state parks, said Kim Hatcher, public affairs coordinator for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. A partnership between the Aimee Copeland Foundation and DNR, the all-terrain chairs allow visitors with mobility issues to get off the beaten path like never before. They have hand controls and even a remote in case the person using them is unable to operate the controls themselves.
“It’s a total game-changer, life-changer,” Copeland said.
The chairs are part of an ongoing effort made by Georgia Parks to increase accessibility to those with mobility issues — which also includes an accessible horse ramp at Don Carter State Park, an accessible kayak launch at Labor Creek State Park, and ADA-accessible fishing piers, campsites and cottages across the state.
“Our leadership recognizes that this is an important thing to offer to the citizens of Georgia,” Hatcher said. “We do have an aging population across the country, so we are just trying to meet that need.”
Hitting the sweet spot
Being able to enjoy the outdoors later in life can also hinge on addressing any potential health issues that are impacting mobility in the first place. Dr. Alexis Alva, an orthopedic surgeon with the Northside Hospital Orthopedic Institute Total Joint Program, regularly sees patients struggling with mobility because of hip and knee problems, some of which can be remedied with nonsurgical techniques.
But given that older adults expect to remain active longer than ever before, those nonsurgical options often have their limits.
“I tell patients, when it gets to the point where you’re not doing the things that you love doing, that’s when we should be talking about surgery,” Alva said. “We want to get them back to doing those physical activities, because that helps with overall health as well. There’s kind of a sweet spot where patients who haven’t been immobile for too long, who aren’t developing issues like obesity and cardiovascular disease, where we’re still able to go in and safely replace those knees well into their 90s.”
That means lost mobility can be regained for those patients whose limitations can be addressed surgically.
“With the new implants that we’re using, really nothing’s off limits to patients after they get their hip or knee replaced,” Alva said. “A lot of patients come in feeling like they’re going to be severely limited for the rest of their life. And that’s just really not the case anymore.”
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