Photo by CoCo Walters / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Imogene Dattilo, 74 follows her instructor, Ernie Hall, during a Tai Chi class at the Heartland Cancer Center Wednesday October 28, 2009. Imogene's Breast Cancer has been in remission since 2001 and she has been practicing Tai Chi and Yoga for a year, she says, "It's made a new person out of me! I've got muscles I didn't know I had."

“Lift the sky ... press the earth,” Ernestine Hall quietly urges her students. “Imagine a little space between each vertebrae.”

Imogene Dattilo follows the directions, slowly lifting her 74-year-old arms toward the ceiling tiles while gently pressing her feet into the carpet in a smooth, easy movement.

“Take all that stress and push it away and exhale,” Ms. Hall encourages.

The small class of Tai Chi for Health students obey, stretching across the lobby of Heartland’s Cancer Center, releasing their stress as soft music flows over the sound of water trickling down a pot in the corner of the room.

“It’s just made a new person out of me,” Mrs. Dattilo says of the exercise. “I have gotten a lot of strength back and energy.”

Tai Chi for Health is a relatively new form of the ancient martial art. Health care providers all over the country are using it in complementary and alternative medicine programs to help cancer patients fight off the side effects of the disease and its treatment.

“Tai chi is adaptable,” Ms. Hall says. “You can do it seated, you can do it standing, as a group or alone. So it’s progressive. It meets them where they are. When they go through the stages — when they’re in remission or recovery or they serve as a caregiver for someone else — they can approach it from a different angle.”

Mrs. Dattilo is using tai chi to help her quality of life. As a cancer survivor, she says the exercise class helps her not only work on her balance and strength but also fight the battle scars her war with cancer left behind.

“This arm doesn’t reach like it used to,” Mrs. Dattilo says. “I did the exercises they told me to, but to me, this is so much better because it involves the whole body, not just the arms. I needed something like this nine years ago.”

That’s why Heartland started its complementary therapy program — to help patients cope with the trauma of fighting the disease. The Cancer Center offers patients, survivors and caregivers classes not only in tai chi, but also restorative yoga, Nia and massage therapy reflexology, as well as support groups for patients and survivors. The activities are designed to treat the whole person: Not just the body, but the mind and spirit as well.

“It’s calming,” Ms. Hall says of tai chi. “It settles you down so you don’t have the cortisol and adrenaline and all those hormones that come in and want you to take action. It settles you down into your own thoughts. It helps you work through pain.”

“We are finding a lot of people are interested in complimentary medicines and therapies,” says Dr. Bonnie Goins, radiation oncologist at Heartland Regional Medical Center. “So we’re trying to promote that and find places where they can do it, in a group setting, to allow for the social aspect as well.”

Dr. Goins says studies show exercise can help cancer patients improve their sleep patterns, posture and balance. But perhaps most important for patients battling this disease, it also can improve their energy and stamina levels.

“Our patients tend to be quite fatigued, not just from the cancer, but also from the treatments,” Dr. Goins says. “It also helps them relax. It gives them a little social event to help them interact with other cancer patients so it’s kind of a combination of all those things. That’s why we encourage it.”

“They’ll come after class and say they feel like their medications are working better for them,” says Ms. Hall about her students. “Or they’ll say they have come to terms with radiation, chemotherapy or some of the follow-up medications that they’re taking or what their caregivers are having them do for relaxation. It just all kind of fits together.”

While Ms. Hall loves to tout the medical benefits of tai chi, she’s the first to admit it’s not a cure. It’s a supplement, a way to possibly relieve some side effects of conventional cancer therapy and improve her overall sense of well-being.

“At one point I had a journal and I just left it on the table when people signed in,” Ms. Hall remembers. “It was amazing how many people would write down how tai chi was helping them, how the relaxation was helping them.”

“I just got back from a trip to the Holy Land,” Mrs. Dattilo says. “I couldn’t believe that I could out-walk all of those people. I did and it was just wonderful.”

Those are the stories Ms. Hall loves to hear.

“Emotionally it is very rewarding for me,” Ms. Hall says. “I see how this has made a difference in people’s lives. I can see it in their eyes, you can see it in their manner. And that’s the whole idea — to spread something to others in the community that can be helpful.”

Lifestyles reporter Tamara Clymer can be reached at tami.clymer@npgco.com.

Photo by CoCo Walters / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo

Ernie Hall, Certified in Tai Chi for Health, leads a small Tai Chi class in the lobby of the Heartland Health Cancer Center. Ernie says the benefits of Tai Chi for Cancer patients include the release of stress, increased social interaction, and improvement in muscle strength and balance.