Now do you inadvertently, suddenly find that you have lost interest in many things, lazy all day long, and sigh at every turn: Alas, so tired! So aging comes so fast? Yes, one of the main signs of aging is that our physical energy begins to decline; Our cardiopulmonary function also decreases due to various reasons, and the cardiac output decreases. After the age of 30, our bone mass and muscle mass will gradually decrease, and as we age, our bones will become weaker, our joints will become stiff, and our balance will become shaky.
Entering old age is much faster than you think, perhaps, we just want to get a glass of water on the bedside table and sit on the floor; Perhaps just a cough may cause fractures, common sites are vertebral (vertebral) fractures, proximal femur fractures, distal forearm fractures, etc., clinically this low-energy injury caused by fractures called fragility fractures, it is a signal of osteoporosis, but also a symptom of osteoporosis, will push us into a long and painful abyss. A study of 12 healthy volunteers with an average age of 67 years found that just 10 days of bed rest was about the amount of time a person would experience in a serious illness or orthopedic injury. Note that these were healthy volunteers, and they lost an average of 1.5 kg of muscle, which is considerable muscle loss, and for patients over 65 years of age with hip fractures, this muscle loss and regression of physical abilities is equivalent to death. Therefore, the time it takes to lose muscle strength and mass is much shorter than the time it takes to gain muscle strength and mass, especially when we are sedentary, and in the most extreme cases, this muscle loss is called "sarcopenia".
In the above narrative, we know two words: fragility fractures and sarcopenia, they are closely related to aging, in the process of fighting aging, we can only keep depositing more muscles into our health bank, muscles are like our exoskeleton that keeps our skeleton (bones) upright and intact, and there is more muscle mass on the exoskeleton to protect us from all kinds of troubles. So, what do we do?
The following strategies should be employed
Optimize nutrition: Focus on protein and total energy requirements. As we age, loss of appetite and early satiety lead to insufficient protein intake in many older people; Not only them, in this era of thinness as beauty, everyone loses weight at every turn, and stays away from many protein and carbohydrate foods. As everyone knows, we need more dietary protein to compensate for the metabolic changes in age-related proteins and the high consumption status associated with acute and chronic diseases. Therefore, in addition to meat, eggs and milk, we must also add a variety of protein sources from soy products and aquatic products.
Exercise in moderation: Exercise has the greatest power to determine how you spend this life. Start with cardiorespiratory or aerobic fitness, combined with weight-bearing activities. Strength training, which stimulates bone growth more than impact exercises such as running, which responds to mechanical tension, and estrogen, a key hormone that converts mechanical signals into chemical signals, tells the body to "lay" more bones. Exercise is a good medicine, and once you start, you will benefit from it, and it can help our "body", the world's most complex and sophisticated instrument, work better and longer.
Treatment: Medications to increase bone density or hormone replacement therapy under the guidance of a doctor.
The Department of Orthopedics and Joints of the First Hospital of Handan City is a key medical specialty in Handan City during the 14th Five-Year Plan, a national standardized training base for resident doctors, a professional base for orthopedics, a master's training base for master's students of Hebei North University, and a training base for orthopedic nurses in Handan City, with a medical team of more than 30 people and 35 open beds. The Department of Orthopaedics and Joints has carried out complex total hip and total knee replacement and revision surgeries, and stepped treatment of knee osteoarthritis, including PRP therapy, proximal tibial high osteotomy and unicompartmental replacement, arthroscopic reconstruction and repair of cruciate ligament injury, rotator cuff injury, hip impingement syndrome, etc.
Address: Department of Bone, Joint and Sports Medicine, First Hospital of Handan City
Contact number: 0310-8635222
Nursing station 0310-8635066
Text/Chen Xiaopeng
Source: The First Hospital of Handan City