If you look at your parents' steps during the Lunar New Year holiday, you will see a disease
Jan 26, 2025
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Parents' gait is a sign of joint and spinal health. Just observing your gait or movement can give you important clues to check your health.
If you have knee arthritis, your walking becomes asymmetric when you try to put less weight on one leg to avoid pain. This can lead to less use of one leg and excessive burden on the other leg, causing pain and fatigue.
On the other hand, if you often rest when walking or complain of strong pain in the buttocks, you may suspect spinal stenosis. When the spinal canal narrows and the nerves are compressed, the legs become numb and lose strength, and when sitting or bending the waist, the pain is reduced.
In addition, walking as if dragging your feet or unusually short stride may appear without lifting your ankles sufficiently due to nerve compression or muscle weakness due to lumbar disc or spinal canal stenosis.
Heo Dong-beom, director of Yonsei Star Hospital (Orthopedic surgeon), said "Gait patterns during walking can be closely related to arthritis, nerve compression, muscle weakness, etc"The earlier these abnormal signals are dealt with, the more likely they are to remain healthy" he said.
The symptoms of knee arthritis may be insignificant in the beginning, but the pain intensifies over time and can make a cracking sound or feel friction when moving joints. Inflammation and pain can be alleviated by injection and medication, but it is not a fundamental solution. Weight management and muscle strengthening exercises around the knee must be combined to slow the progression of the disease. If the pain is severe or knee deformation is severe, joint function should be restored through artificial joint surgery, and if the surgery is delayed, there is a risk of worsening symptoms due to weight gain and muscle loss as the amount of activity decreases due to pain.
In the case of severe inflammation and adhesion due to lumbar disc and spinal stenosis, injection or non-surgical treatment can relieve pain. However, it is important to improve lifestyle habits such as proper posture and walking exercise that do not strain the back, not just relieve symptoms. If pain persists or neurological symptoms such as muscle weakness, walking disorders, and urine disorders appear, the disease should be considered a very serious signal and should be immediately treated by a specialist.
Sitting on the floor for a long time during the holidays puts a heavy burden on the health of the knee and spine. Both legs or squatting posture can put abnormal pressure on the knee joint, interfere with intra-articular lubricating fluid circulation, and cause inflammation. In addition, sitting on the floor naturally bends the back, putting constant stress on the spine, and if maintained for a long time, back pain is likely to occur due to muscle tension and disk damage.
Director of the hospital Heo Dong-beom said, `If you are a parent with knee arthritis or poor back health, it is necessary to avoid living on the floor and use a chair or cushion with a backrest. These small changes in habits can prevent holiday syndrome and long-term aftereffects that can occur after the holidays," he said.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
