LifeCare Healthcare Fund in Roseau, Minn., Strengthens Bone Builders Exercise Program in Greenbush, Minn., with $1,000 Grant to Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of the Red River Valley

Exercise can help build stronger bones and prevent or reverse the damaging effects of osteoporosis.  The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of the Red River Valley, sponsored by the University of Minnesota, Crookston recently received $1000 from Roseau's LifeCare Medical Center's LifeCare Health Care Fund to start up a RSVP Bone Builders Exercise Program in Greenbush, Minn. The class, beginning in January 2010, is free of charge for all participants.

RSVP Bone Builders is an osteoporosis prevention/reversal exercise program that uses ankle and hand weights to build bone density. Benefits of the class may include increased bone density, lower blood pressure, increased energy, an increased sense of well being, and improved balance.

The Mayo Clinic reports that 40,000 deaths each year are associated with osteoporosis-many of these resulting from complications following hip and other bone fractures. In fact, there are 1.5 million fractures per year due to osteoporosis, costing an estimated $18 million in hospital and nursing home services. One-half of All American women and one-fourth of men over the age of 50 will have an osteoporosis fracture in their remaining lifetime.

In addition to four Bone Builders classes in Polk County, RSVP sponsored fourteen additional classes throughout northwest Minnesota through an Otto Bremer Foundation grant. Other contributors to the program were Crookston and Thief River Falls United Way, Polk County and the East Grand Forks Senior Center.
 
The LifeCare Health Care Fund received grant proposal requests for $17,112 from very worthy projects and awarded three grants for a total of $2,081.

For more information on RSVP Bone Builders, contact Director of RSVP Deanna Patenaude at 218-281-8288.

Today the University of Minnesota, Crookston delivers more than 25 applied-science undergraduate degree programs and 50 concentrations, including several online degrees, in agriculture; arts, humanities and social sciences; business; math, science and technology; and natural resources. To learn more, visit www.UMCrookston.edu.
 

Contact: Deanna Patenaude, director, RSVP, 218-281-8288 (dpatenau@umn.edu); Elizabeth Tollefson, assistant director of communications, 218-281-8432 (ltollefs@umn.edu)

Pages