Folk games and protecting your joints

By Song Sang-ho

It’s a happy Lunar New Year’s day when family members get together. Children get excited with expectations of getting a New Year’s cash gift, and adults don’t care how time flies sharing stories left unsaid with their parents or relatives after a long time no see.

By the way, there are many cases where a clumsy atmosphere is created once family members get together because they are at a loss at what to do first. Adults are busy welcoming visitors or watching TV. Children are intent on playing games using smart phone or computers. And then, people can feel lifeless with no purpose and feeling no holiday mood.

If you have no idea how to spend time with family members, try old folk games that people used to play on Lunar New Year’s Day.

The games can teach children traditions, and at the same time give adults nostalgia for their childhood. In addition, a game can also be an important way of checking the condition of joints, which people have been indifferent to.

There might be those who wonder how a game can show the condition of a joint. Let’s think about “jegichagi,” which is played by tossing a “jegi” — made of round-shape solid with tassels of 5~10cm thrust on it — in the air, and then kicking. What matters the most here is who can kick “jegi” for how many times. Usually, the knee and hip joint are used in order to kick the “jegi.” However, if someone feels pain around the hip joint or knee joint when hitting “jegi,” the person may have joint disease. Particularly, elderly people are vulnerable to arthritis as their auricular cartilage wears due to aging. When such a condition is left unattended, it could develop into degenerative arthritis.

It’s also possible to confirm the symptom of the shoulder, such as frozen shoulders and rotator cuff tear through the games. “Tuho” is when people take turns throwing an arrow at a round barrel. The winner in “tuho” is the person who throws the most arrows into the barrel. People usually resort to the shoulder while lifting the arm for the motion of throwing an arrow. If the shoulders don’t move to and fro, and pain is felt when the arms are stretched forward when throwing an arrow, it might be a frozen shoulder. In addition, if it becomes difficult for one to turn the shoulders or to lift, it might be a rotator cuff tear. The “rotator cuff” means a tendon consisting of four muscles covering the shoulder, and it plays the role of allowing the arms rotate. There are many cases where the rotator cuff is left unattended at a time of its initial damage because people don’t feel pain much as the tendon itself of the rotator cuff has less nerve distribution.

However, it’s impossible to self-treat a rotator cuff tear and the tear gets bigger, so it’s necessary to have a quick diagnosis and treatment. In most of the cases where the tear is not nasty, it’s possible to treat it with “suturing” through arthroscopy, but in case of a nasty tear joint, it might be necessary to have open surgery.

Barring pain, the games are a good way to work out. They can flex the stiff body because they require the use of arms and feet. They also require the stretching of muscles that have not been used.

However, if a person has existing knee or shoulder pain, it’s advisable to refrain from playing “jegichagi” or “tuho.” Particularly, in the wintry season, people’s joints becomes strained and stiff due to the cold, and special care is needed because of a heightened risk of injury.

In “jegichagi” the player has to keep balanced on one leg, and consequently the load on the knee joint gets bigger than usual, so an arthritis patient had better not participate.

The Korean see-saw is an ideal workout to do with grandsons and granddaughters by jumping up and down to a regular rhythm — “deog” and “kung.” However, when moving down, the elderly, whose bone structure is fragile, might put stress on the hip and knee joint.

For those who usually spend less time with family members, it’s recommendable to make full use of the Lunar New Year’s holiday. Regrettably, with this Lunar New Year falling on the weekend, the holidays will be too short to spend enough time with parents.

Anyway, let’s try to spend meaningful holidays while making precious memories with children through the folk games and checking the joint condition of parents whom you don’t see frequently.

The writer is the president of Wellton Bone & Joint Hospital.