As soon as people get old, all the functions of the body are declining, but the old people’s health care methods are special, so they should never keep up with the young people. Wang Changjiang, deputy chief physician of the Department of Orthopaedics, Rocket Army Characteristic Medical Center, reminded that the elderly should pay attention to avoiding "five periods" in their daily life, that is, not walking for a long time, standing for a long time, sitting for a long time, lying down for a long time, and looking for a long time, so as to lay a good foundation for health preservation.
Don’t walk for a long time: it is advisable to walk three or four thousand steps every day.
Many elderly people think that walking more is good for their health, and some people walk tens of thousands of steps a day, which is unscientific. In the long run, there will be serious injuries to the knee joint, hip joint and ankle joint, which will lead to joint swelling, difficulty in walking and difficulty in going up and down stairs.
For the elderly, exercise for 40 minutes with light load every day, such as walking 3000-4000 steps every day, and don’t walk too fast. If you feel sore and tired after walking for a while, you should stop and have a rest immediately. The initial exercise can start with 1000 steps a day, and then gradually increase the number of steps. When walking, you need to choose a flat road, wear cloth shoes or sports shoes with good anti-slip performance, and you can also wear knee pads to avoid bone and joint injuries caused by falling.
Don’t stand for a long time: don’t stand for more than 20 minutes
Standing for too long in the elderly is not conducive to blood circulation in the legs, which may lead to diseases such as varicose veins. Especially for the "three highs" elderly, standing for a long time will also lead to insufficient blood supply to the brain, and it is easy to fall and induce a stroke. Some elderly people will have symptoms such as leg weakness and dizziness after standing for a long time. The reasons are leg muscle strain, heart disease, qi and blood deficiency, degenerative arthritis, and lack of nutrition in local tissues. Those with obvious symptoms should go to the hospital for orthopedic treatment in time.
We advise the elderly not to stand for more than 20 minutes. If you stand for a long time during the day, you can soak your feet with warm water before going to bed at night. When you sleep, you can raise your heels so that your legs are higher than the horizontal line of your heart, which will help alleviate the poor blood return caused by long standing.
Don’t sit for a long time: easy to cause osteoporosis.
Some elderly people sit for a long time because they like watching TV, playing chess and drinking tea. Sedentary will greatly reduce the intensity and frequency of bone activity and accelerate the process of osteoporosis in the elderly. Moreover, sedentary will make the neck muscles and cervical vertebrae in a fixed position for a long time, leading to poor local blood circulation, muscle strain, headache and cervical spondylosis, which is even worse for the elderly with cervical spondylosis or insufficient blood supply to the brain.
Therefore, the elderly should stand up and walk for 3-5 minutes every hour, stretch their legs and move their waist, move their knees or massage their knees with their hands, thus reducing the adhesion of tissues inside and outside the joints.
Don’t stay in bed for a long time: don’t stay in bed all the time unless you sleep.
Some elderly people don’t like to communicate with others and don’t like sports. They always like to rest on the sofa or bed. Long-term lying will cause muscle atrophy and muscle weakness, and even cause joint contracture and deformation; Reduce gastrointestinal peristalsis and easily cause constipation; Slow blood flow and high blood viscosity in the elderly may cause venous thrombosis and vascular obstruction.
Therefore, the elderly should try not to stay in bed for more than one hour during non-sleep time, and get up every hour to exercise their bones and muscles, and it is best to go outdoors.
If some elderly people need to stay in bed for a long time due to physical illness, they should pay special attention to avoid bedsores. You can choose an air cushion mattress, which has a good bedsore prevention effect, and the cotton mattress has poor air permeability. In addition, turning over every two hours and patting the back can promote the blood circulation of the body.
Don’t look too long: excessive use of eyes can cause eye diseases.
For the elderly, excessive use of eyes will lead to blurred vision, dry eyes, turbid lenses, optic nerve damage, macular degeneration, etc., thus inducing eye diseases such as cataract, glaucoma and senile macular degeneration.
Old people should pay attention to the habit of using their eyes. When reading books and newspapers, the reading materials should be at least 30 cm away from their eyes, and don’t lean forward too much. Look away from TV and mobile phone every 20 minutes, or close your eyes and have a rest. In daily life, you can often blink your eyes, or turn your eyes up, down, left and right, which can exercise your eye muscles and delay aging.
(Author: Rocket Army Medical Center Mo Peng)