K&M Fitness Solutions Adaptive Performance Center

Every day in the United States approximately 22 veterans commit suicide. In 2014, the latest year statistics were available, more than 7,400 veterans took their own lives, accounting for 18 percent of all suicides in America. Veterans, however, make up less than 9 percent of the U.S. population. Those numbers are shocking and continue to rise each year. From 2001-2014 veteran suicide rose 32%. In recent years the VA has hired a staggering 5300 mental health providers to deal with this issue while only 30% of veterans utilize any type of VA service. We are here to change that by providing a facility that veterans will want to be part of and will assist them in returning to a more active life, thus reducing veteran suicide.

K&M Fitness Solutions Adaptive Performance Center is a facility designed to serve disabled veterans and help them improve and maintain as much independent active living as possible and improve social functioning. From PTSD, depression, and anxiety to amputees, and para/quadriplegics we are here to help them in a way that just mental health and rehabilitative services cannot achieve. Too often veterans with disabilities are categorized into a “percentage of improvement” from a rehabilitation standpoint. Once they reach that number they are released from therapeutic services and expected to adapt to the limitations they have without access to services that will help them improve. We believe those numbers can be much higher with the right type of facility. A gym environment allows veterans to feel more conventional as they work their body. The psychological impact of not feeling like they are in a clinical setting is one very large hurdle that can be overcome. In a rehabilitation facility an individual tends to feel “sick” or like there is something wrong with them. In a gym, the psychological belief is that of normalcy, strength and possibility.

Many of these veterans are highly skilled and highly trained. After their injuries they are put on disability and many are told that they can expect no relief from chronic pain and other issues that come from service related disabilities. When they report chronic pain to their doctor they are given a pain regimen and told nothing can be done about it. Over time as they continue to look for pain medication they are frequently refused by doctors as drug seeking. Many turn to drug addictions at this point. They leave the workforce, have a little social interaction, and frequently wind up alone. They isolate themselves from their families and friends feeling more like a burden than a well trained, highly educated and productive member of society.

Physical activity and strength training has been proven to assist in relief of chronic pain allowing sufferers to eliminate their use of pain medication. Elimination of pain medication improves cognitive function, which in turn allows individuals to return to more social and familial interaction returning their sense of vitality and purpose. This improves depression, anxiety and symptoms associated with PTSD. Improvement physically and mentally equates individuals that can return to a specialized work force as well as normal social activity.

Through K&M Fitness Solutions Adaptive Performance Center, veterans with disabilities can return to an active and fulfilling life post injury. Our facility provides certified personal trainers specializing in adaptive training. Physical health and well-being is a proven component in an independent lifestyle for people with disabilities.

Those suffering with mental health issues will also have the benefit of personal training as well as on site mental health access to address PTSD, depression and anxiety. A veteran working side by side with other veterans toward a common goal is the greatest form of therapy these individuals can receive. The military motto of “bigger, faster, better, stronger” becomes a life motto and the driving force in their success.