Advisory for the joint Injuries spring
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By Song Sang-Ho
A lot of people move in the spring. Cleaning, packing and transporting household goods prior to and following the move necessitate substantially more physical labor than average daily activities.
This frequently induces injuries due to sudden and excessive use of the muscles and joints that were not subject to strenuous work during the winter.
One of the major injuries of the joints that can occur while packing and transporting household goods is a rotator cuff tear, which is a disorder in the shoulder joint. The rotator cuff refers to the collection of four tendons that wrap the shoulder.
Sudden excessive use of the rotator cuff while transporting household goods may cause damage to these tendons.
If you experience pain in the shoulder and the symptoms aggravate rather than improve after sufficient rest and self-treatment, there may be a problem in the rotator cuff.
Although it is possible to improve the symptoms through drug or intravenous injection and exercise therapies at the initial stage of the rotator cuff tear, if it is severe or additional damage to the muscle tissue is anticipated, arthroscopic surgery may be necessary.
In addition, when carrying large and heavy household goods at the time of moving, people may fall down easily due to the difficulties in securing a clear view of where they are headed.
If you fall down while carrying heavy loads, the entire weight of the cargo will be passed onto the knee joint at once and greatly increases the extent of impact and injury.
A meniscus tear is the one of the injuries that can occur in the joint.
The meniscus is a semi-circular cartilage that performs the role of reducing friction between bones and absorbs external impacts in the knee joint.
It can be easily injured if the knee is snapped during a fall while carrying heavy objects. Although symptoms include pain and edema, it is difficult to determine the tear only through external examination.
If the damage is left unattended, the leg may become thinner due to the decrease in the muscle mass and may develop into early stage degenerative arthritis because of the dissipation of the buffering action that absorbs impacts on the joint.
It is a disorder that can be sufficiently treated without surgery if detected at an early stage. If a person experiences the feeling of something being caught in the knee or if swelling and pain persist after having fallen down while moving household goods, they must undergo treatment at hospital.
Many people frequently complain of muscular pain following the cleaning of a house after the move, which may develop into disorders of the joints if unattended, particularly in the case of housewives who do most of the cleaning.
Housewives over the age of 40 are always exposed to the risk of joint disorders due to excessive domestic chores.
Mopping the floor in a squatting posture or performing domestic chores for a prolonged period of time in an uncomfortable posture can induce pain in the back and symptoms of numbness in the legs due to the burden exerted on various joints including the knees, spine and wrists.
Accordingly, housewives with symptoms of arthritis in particular must exercise precaution.
In order to prevent joint injuries that may occur while doing chores including cleaning, it is advisable to pay attention not to bend the back as much as possible.
When mopping the floor, use mops with a push stick rather than doing the chore in squatting posture.
In addition, if the height of the sink or the washing machine is not appropriate for your height, use a foot stool rather than bending your back.
Most of all, you need to put efforts to prevent cramping or stressing of the muscles while cleaning by relaxing the muscles through the changing of the posture and stretching every 10 minutes.
Moreover, you must relax tensed muscles through sufficient rest and a hot bath, after moving or cleaning. In particular, women need sufficient rest after excessively strenuous domestic chores as they have only two thirds of the muscle mass of men.
In order to complete the moving without any mishaps, it is important to exercise wisdom to maintain healthy joints more so than on any other occasion.
Therefore, it is important to maintain proper posture, relax the muscles of the joints through stretching and pay more attention to abnormal symptoms, including pain in the joints, when performing chores with suddenly increased intensity.
The writer is the president of Wellton Hospital.