Dr. Kunal Batra

Exercises to Put an End to Cervical Spondylosis

Exercise helps ease arthritis pain and stiffness

As you consider starting an arthritis exercise program, understand what's within your limits and what level of exercise is likely to give you results.

Exercise is crucial for people with arthritis. It increases strength and flexibility, reduces joint pain, and helps combat fatigue. Of course, when stiff and painful joints are already bogging you down, the thought of walking around the block or swimming a few laps might seem overwhelming.

But you don't need to run a marathon or swim as fast as an olympic competitor to help reduce arthritis symptoms. Even moderate exercise can ease your pain and help you maintain a healthy weight. When arthritis threatens to immobilize you, exercise keeps you moving. Not convinced? read on.

Why exercise is vital

Exercise can help you improve your health and fitness without hurting your joints. With your current treatment program, exercise can:

Strengthen the muscles around your joints

Help you maintain bone strength

Give you more energy to get through the day

Make it easier to get a good night's sleep

Help you control your weight

Enhance your quality of life

Improve your balance

Though you might think exercise will aggravate your joint pain and stiffness, that's not the case. Lack of exercise actually can make your joints even more painful and stiff.

That's because keeping your muscles and surrounding tissue strong is crucial to maintaining support for your bones. Not exercising weakens those supporting muscles, creating more stress on your joints.

Check with your doctor first

Talk to your doctor about fitting exercise into your treatment plan. What types of exercises are best for you depends on your type of arthritis and which joints are involved. Your doctor or a physical therapist can work with you to find the exercise plan that gives you the most benefit with the least aggravation of your joint pain.

Exercises for arthritis

Your doctor or physical therapist can recommend exercises for you, which might include range-of-motion exercises, strengthening exercises, aerobic exercise and other activities.

Range-of-motion exercises

These exercises relieve stiffness and increase your ability to move your joints through their full range of motion. These exercises might include movements such as raising your arms over your head or rolling your shoulders forward and backward. In most cases, these exercises can be done daily.

Strengthening exercises

These exercises help you build strong muscles that help support and protect your joints. Weight training is an example of a strengthening exercise that can help you maintain or increase your muscle strength. Remember to avoid exercising the same muscle groups two days in a row. Rest a day between your workouts, and take an extra day or two if your joints are painful or swollen.

When starting a strength-training program, a three-day-a-week program can help you jump-start your improvement, but two days a week is all you need to maintain your gains.

Aerobic exercise

Aerobic or endurance exercises help with your overall fitness. They can improve your cardiovascular health, help you control your weight and give you more stamina and energy.

Examples of low-impact aerobic exercises that are easier on your joints include walking, bicycling, swimming and using an elliptical machine. Try to work your way up to 150 minutes of moderately intense aerobic exercise per week. You can split that time into 10-minute blocks if that's easier on your joints.

Moderate intensity aerobic exercise is the safest and most effective if it's done most days of the week, but even a couple of days a week is better than no exercise. To determine if you are in the moderate intensity exercise zone, you should be able to carry on a conversation while exercising, though your breathing rate will be increased.

Other activities

Any movement, no matter how small, can help. Daily activities such as mowing the lawn, raking leaves and walking the dog counts.

Body awareness exercises, such as gentle forms of yoga or tai chi, can help you improve balance, prevent falls, improve posture and coordination, and promote relaxation. Be sure to tell your instructor about your condition and avoid positions or movements that can cause pain.

A broken wrist is known as a wrist fracture and it may occur due to a variety of causes starting from undue pressure on the wrist which can result in an injury as well as debilitating conditions like arthritis, which makes the bones and joints prone to fractures. There are also non displaced breaks, which are stable kinds of fractures and in which, the wrist remains in its place. Let us find out more about the kinds of fractures and the procedures for treatment of the same.

Type of Fracture: The wrist is basically made up of eight small bones that connect the two long arm bones, which are known as the radius and ulna and create the forearm. The broken wrist can take place in any of these bones. A hand surgeon will generally take a look at this kind of fracture and determine whether it is displaced, stable or open. As discussed earlier, a wrist fracture can be of various types. While a non displaced wrist fracture is a more stable kind that does not really require much more than rest or medication, a displaced wrist fracture is a non stable kind where dislocation happens.

Other Factors: There are a variety of other factors that will be taken into consideration in order to repair this kind of a fracture. To begin with, the Orthopaedic specialist will consider your age and the kind of job, hobbies and other kinds of activities that you indulge in. Also, the doctor will try to ascertain whether or not you are in good health on an overall basis. The presence of other injuries will also be taken into account for this kind of an injury in there has been a bike or car accident that has caused the fracture.

Treatment: The method of treatment will vary as per the considerations listed above. A padded splint may be installed in order to align and support the bones and wrist respectively, so that there is ample relief from the acute pain as well. Further, an unstable fracture will require a cast as to support the entire forearm and give proper rest to the region so that the bone can grow back together and get aligned again. Surgery may also be required for very severe cases, and pins, screws, metals and plates may also be used depending on the exact location and type of fracture.

Recovery: Remember to move your fingers as much as you can so as to prevent them from getting stiff while they are held up in a splint or a cast.
Hand therapy will be helpful in gaining back motion and function of the wrist. In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!