What can you do to maintain healthy knees and hips
Simple steps that may help you avoid hip and knee replacement surgery?
More than 70,000 Australians undergo hip and knee replacements every year. Surgeons do an amazing job of replacing worn joints to allow patients to continue to enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle for many years to come. But, is there anything we can do to maintain healthy knees and hips and potentially avoid going through a joint replacement?
Sydney Sports Physiotherapist and Wellness consultant, Fadi Dabbagh, spoke this morning on Sydney radio about simple steps that we can all do to help maintain healthy joints into retirement. Fadi who will be speaking this weekend on wellness and preventing knee arthritis at the upcoming 11th annual Health Aging A5M Conference in Melbourne said that there a number of simple steps that we can all do to maintain healthy joints as we age.
Fadi cites the case of a retired patient, Steve that presented with a diagnosis of knee arthritis following an X-Ray and was told that his condition is unlikely to improve, but that he can manage it with pain killers and anti-inflammatory medication. Steve was unable to walk down stairs without pain and had to stop playing golf. After some treatment and following a structured exercise program over a few months, Steve reported that “the improvement was immediate. Pain was-initially-still a problem, but my mobility rapidly returned [till] I was pain free and fully mobile. I now walk eighteen holes of golf two or three times a week, walk 10-15000 steps a day when I’m not playing golf.” (Steve)
Fadi said that the hips, knees and ankles joints act like our body’s suspension system and we need to maintain good range and muscle strength around these joints as we age for them to do their job properly. “Maintaining normal range of joint motion is critically important. Probably the worst thing, you can do to your hips and knees is to spend most of your day sitting. If there was only one single exercise that could help prevent knee and hip arthritis, then safe squatting would be it. If you haven’t done this before, simply start by standing up from a chair and repeating 10 times or so and repeat a few times per day and go from there. This will help build stronger muscles around your hip, knee and ankle joints and keep your suspension system healthy.*
Some of the other simple steps that help maintain good knee and hip joint health include:
- Stay active as you age: Don’t spend too much of your time sitting down. If you can, walk and aim for 5000 -10000 steps per day or 30-60 minutes of aerobic exercise at least 5 days a week.
- Maintain a healthy weight, as you may actually slow down the progress of arthritis. Research shows that a 5kg weigh loss translates to around a 20% reduction in knee pain.
- Avoid high-impact activities, especially in the gym as they can potentially damage your hips and your knees.
- Listen to your body. If you start noticing a reduction in range of movement, in your spine, hips, knees or ankles, see a Physiotherapist and get it checked out. It’s important to treat the cause of the restriction, not simply to take pain killers or anti-inflammatory medication.
*Always check with your health practitioner before starting an exercise program