Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a rare autoimmune disease in which communication between nerves and muscles is disrupted, causing muscles to not always work properly—resulting in chronic, fluctuating muscle weakness. The effects of MG can be life-altering, physically debilitating, and emotionally draining.
Too much repetitive movement or overexerting can increase symptoms in people living with MG. Because of that, people with this disorder largely refrain from physical activity under the assumption that exercising can exacerbate MG symptoms. But people living with MG are just like everybody else in the respect that movement and activity are important for overall health. We wanted to provide examples for the MG community of how to integrate movement activities into their everyday lives in ways that wouldn’t exacerbate their symptoms, which was the foundation for the Move for MG series.
To provide support, inspiration, and self-empowerment to the MG community and help people living with MG stay active and confidently move their bodies in ways that feel best for them, we partnered with an inspiring advocate—Liz Plowman, PT, DPT, OCS, TPS. She is a physical therapist specializing in chronic pain. She is also a person living with MG herself, so all of the techniques that she exemplified for the series are also applicable to her own daily routines.
Liz enthusiastically agreed to partner with the More than MG campaign and shared insider information about physical therapy, occupational therapy, and the challenges people living with MG face with physical activity. During a full-day video shoot, she demonstrated a variety of movements she teaches patients in her own practice to improve things such as posture, stability, and balance. She explained that a challenge people living with MG experience is knowing how to stay under their fatigue threshold. In light of that, she described some ways people living with MG can listen to their body and know if they’re getting close to that threshold.
The footage captured of Liz discussing these important topics and demonstrating movements was turned into the episodic miniseries “Move for MG,” which launched on the More Than MG YouTube channel in October 2023 during National Physical Therapy Month. Short teaser videos and social posts were published across the More Than MG social pages when new episodes went live, encouraging users to click through and watch the full-length episodes on YouTube.
Liz’s credibility through her own education, profession, and personal experiences of living with MG resonated with the MG community. As of November 2023, the Move for MG miniseries garnered:
Our intention with the Move for MG series was to reach the audiences who needed this information the most—those living with MG—to help improve their everyday lives.
