Go Ahead and Jump: Learning How to Properly Jump and Land Can Help Female Athletes Avoid Serious Knee Injuries
Source: Science Daily
Female athletes tear their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) six to eight times more than male athletes who play the same sport. A leading sports medicine surgeon believes incorporating a jumping and landing program into a regular training regimen can help keep women on the field and out of the operating room.
McCulloch says many women land with their knees straight and their kneecaps pointing inward and this puts an incredible amount of stress on the ACL, while men tend to land with their feet further apart with more bend in the knees. He believes a jumping/landing program involving plyometric exercises can help women train their muscles to develop a “muscle memory” that will alert their hamstrings to fire off at the right time and help them land with a bend in their knees.
Stop elbow pain before it’s chronic
Source: The Province
One body part where there are a number of common issues is the elbow joint. Terms like tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow get thrown around regularly when people have pain in their elbows.
Related conditions, like carpal tunnel syndrome, also involve the elbow joint and muscles of the forearm. One of the problems with elbow injuries is that this area is constantly in use. People with elbow pain commonly list simple activities like typing, driving, writing, shaking hands or turning doorknobs as movements that aggravate their condition.
Tennis Elbow – What is Tennis Elbow?
Source: News medical
Tennis elbow is a condition where the outer part of the elbow becomes sore and tender. It is commonly associated with playing tennis and other racquet sports, though the injury can happen to almost anybody.
The condition is also known as lateral epicondylitis (“inflammation of the outside elbow bone”), a misnomer as histologic studies have shown no inflammatory process. Other descriptions for tennis elbow are lateral epicondylosis, lateral epicondylalgia, or simply lateral elbow pain.
Embracing the brace
Source: Daily Rx
Knees are only meant to bend forward and backward. If a knee pops and locks up with major pain, something serious is going on there, and it’s most likely an ACL injury.
The injuries often need surgery to reconstruct the ligament, followed by therapy to help rehabilitate the knee.
It does not lower pain, protect from reinjuring the knee or improve the stability of the knee. Rather, braces add an unnecessary expense to the recovery. Vitamins and other supplements also don’t help in the healing process.
Beginning physical therapy shortly after surgery, ideally within a few days after, can bring great outcomes for patients.
More magnesium, less arthritis
Source: Daily Rx
What you put in your body can affect your risk of disease, even your risk of osteoarthritis. If you’re trying to prevent this “wear-and-tear” type of arthritis, you may want to eat more almonds and spinach.
Eating more magnesium – a mineral found in many green vegetables, beans and nuts – it may lower the risk of knee osteoarthritis.
Most damage, most gain in knee replacement
Source: Daily Rx
If you have knee osteoarthritis, you can take steps to prevent permanent damage. For those with the damage done, joint replacement surgery may relieve pain and boost knee function.
Osteoarthritis patients with the most joint damage before surgery may be the most likely to benefit from total knee replacement.
MRI may spot arthritis unseen by X-ray
Source: Daily Rx
Osteoarthritis happens when joints and joint tissues wear down over time. Usually, doctors use X-ray imaging to see this joint damage. But another imaging technique may give doctors a better picture.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) spotted many signs of knee osteoarthritis in patients that had no signs of knee osteoarthritis in X-ray images.
Quit the bottle to build happy bones
Source: Daily Rx
Avoiding alcohol combined with regular exercise can help men build the bones lost from alcoholism, a new study has found.
The amount of osteocalcin, which is a protein in the bones and teeth, increased over the eight-week period as men continued to avoid alcohol.
This means that there was a “higher rate of bone formation during continuous abstinence,” the authors said in their study.
Global efforts necessary to prevent fragility fractures due to osteoporosis
Source: Medical News Today
The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) has released a new report, revealing approximately 80 percent of patients treated in clinics or hospitals following a fracture are not screened for osteoporosis or risk of future falls. Left untreated, these patients are at high risk of suffering secondary fractures and facing a future of pain, disfigurement, long-term disability and even early death.
The report ‘Capture the Fracture – A global campaign to break the fragility fracture cycle’ calls for concerted worldwide efforts to stop secondary fractures due to osteoporosis by implementing proven models of care.
Reverse surgical solution for a painful shoulder
Source: Science Centric
A standard shoulder replacement, a decades old treatment for severe shoulder arthritis, would likely not have worked for her due to her deficient rotator cuff. However, a recently developed – and radically different – prosthesis, called a reverse total shoulder, offered the best chance of decreasing her pain and improving shoulder function.
‘A normal shoulder is a ball-and-saucer joint, with its stability and motion governed to a large extent by the surrounding rotator cuff musculature,’ said Dr Omer Ilhai, an orthopedic surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. ‘In arthritis, the smooth cartilage overlying and cushioning the surface of the bones is worn away, leaving rough, exposed bone surfaces to rub against each other. This bone-on-bone contact is very painful and usually associated with joint stiffness.’
