Why arthritis tends to worsen during the colder months ?

When I asked Susan why her arthritis seemed worse during winter, she shared several common factors that intensify arthritis pain:

❄️ Cold temperatures can thicken joint fluid, making movement harder and pain more pronounced. ❄️ Reduced physical activity leads to stiffness and decreased mobility. ❄️ Winter’s immune system challenges can exacerbate arthritis symptoms.

Certainly, At Nordicfysio, as specialized physiotherapists, we can provide you with some valuable tips to help relieve arthritis pain in individuals over 60 before the arrival of winter. We’ll also address why arthritis tends to worsen during the colder months:

Step 1: Maintain a Consistent Exercise Routine: Regular, gentle exercise is essential for arthritis management. Focus on exercises that improve joint flexibility and strength, such as swimming, low-impact aerobics, and range-of-motion exercises. Staying physically active helps reduce stiffness and joint pain.

Step 2: Keep Joints Warm: During colder weather, ensure that you keep your joints warm to minimize pain and stiffness. Layer clothing to trap heat, use heating pads or warm baths, and consider wearing compression garments for added warmth.

Step 3: Maintain a Healthy Diet: A well-balanced diet is crucial for arthritis management. Include foods rich in anti-inflammatory properties, such as fatty fish (like salmon and mackerel), nuts, seeds, and colorful fruits and vegetables. Stay hydrated to help lubricate your joints.

Step 4: Protect Your Joints: Use assistive devices when necessary to reduce the strain on your joints. Properly designed canes, braces, or orthotic inserts can help. Avoid repetitive movements that can worsen pain.

Step 5: Consult a Physiotherapist: Consider seeking guidance from a physiotherapist who specializes in arthritis pain management. They can provide personalized exercises and techniques to improve joint mobility, reduce pain, and help you prepare for the winter season.

Now, let’s address why arthritis pain can worsen in winter:

1. Barometric Pressure Changes: Winter weather often brings fluctuations in barometric pressure, which can affect the pressure inside your joints. These changes may lead to increased pain and stiffness.

2. Cold Temperatures: Cold weather can cause the muscles and tissues around your joints to contract and tighten, making joint movement more difficult and painful.

3. Reduced Physical Activity: People tend to be less active during the winter months, which can lead to muscle weakness and decreased joint mobility. Lack of movement can exacerbate arthritis symptoms.

4. Vitamin D Deficiency: Reduced sun exposure in winter can result in lower vitamin D levels. Vitamin D plays a role in maintaining bone health and reducing inflammation. A deficiency may contribute to joint pain.

It’s essential to stay proactive in managing arthritis pain, especially before the winter months. Consultation with a specialized physiotherapist can help you develop a personalized plan to address your specific needs and improve your quality of life.

Do you know how to reduce the risk of falls at home? Worried that as you get older you may start tripping and falling more often? Desperate to reduce your risk of falling?

Falls are very common in older people, which is why 1 in 3 adults over the age of 65 will have at least one fall in a year.

Many patients have experienced a fall and it is often a very distressing experience for an older person, even if they are not seriously injured.

Although serious injuries do not always occur, there is always a risk. There is always a risk that a fall will result in broken bones or life-changing injuries, which can mean losing your ability to be independent in the future.

But falls are preventable!

Why do falls occur in the elderly?

As people age, their overall physical condition and balance tend to decline.

One of the most common reasons older people fall is muscle and bone weakness, which may be due to inactivity or other health conditions such as osteoarthritis.

Another very common cause is medication, which interferes with balance and coordination.

The good news is that you can do something about it! Here are some ways to reduce the risk of falls at home.

How to prevent falls at home

Eliminate tripping hazards

It is important to eliminate any tripping hazards you may have in your home.

Carpets and rugs are one of the biggest allies of falls, so it’s best to make sure they are not located at the top or bottom of stairs.

Trailing cords can also cause trips if you forget they are there. Make sure loose cords are bundled together and away from busy hallways when moving around the house.

Eat and hydrate well

It’s important, too, that you eat well; to maintain your energy levels. Lack of food can make you weak, and this could lead to a fall.

If you don’t have much of an appetite, eat small amounts of food throughout the day instead of 3 large meals – something to eat is always better than nothing!

Stay hydrated, it’s vital to prevent falls. Not drinking enough water can make you feel dizzy, which could decrease your sense of balance and energy levels, risking a fall.

To stay well hydrated, try to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water throughout the day.

Support your bone health

Your bones are the foundation of your body and allow you to stand and walk. As time goes on, your bones can become weak or stiff, which can make it difficult to move freely.

A good way to increase the health of your bones is to consume calcium-rich foods, such as yogurts, milk and green leafy vegetables.

Vitamin D also plays a key role in helping your bones stay healthy, so getting plenty of sunshine and protein-rich foods such as fish is essential.

If you suffer from weak bones, you can also try some lifting exercises to gradually increase your strength.

Not only will these techniques reduce the risk of falling, but if you do suffer a fall, you will reduce the likelihood of serious injury.

Keep your home well lit

At night, it can be very difficult to see in the dark when you need to get out of bed. A great way to reduce the risk of falling at night is to keep your home well lit.

Consider installing a night light somewhere in your bedroom. You could even use motion detection lights that will turn on as you move around the house, giving you peace of mind knowing where you are going.

How physical therapy can help reduce the risk of falls at home

If you are concerned about your balance and risk of falling, physical therapy may be the solution you’ve been looking for.

Our team has worked with many patients who are unsure of themselves and worry about losing their independence in the future.

During treatment, we can help you alleviate concerns and work to drastically improve your balance and strength to reduce the risk of falls. We can help you with strength training and fall prevention exercises to help you recover and feel confident.

If you have more questions, I encourage you to come to our Nordicfysio clinic in Punta Prima or contact us and we will see what the cause is and how we can solve it.

You may be experienced only a slightly improving (or none) from your treatments. Whether it’s physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, whatever; you feel that nothing is improving or it goes so low.

Does it sounds familiar?

This may be due to several factors:

1.- Wrong thecniques used by the therapist (doesn’t mean that this thechnique is poor, only that is not the right one for your problem.

2.- Lack of knowledge of the therapist /use of traditional or classical out fashion techniques thats leads to poor treatments.

But there is also a third cause of why recovery takes time, which very few people know or take into account, which is…

3.- Insuficient voltage (energy) in the cells of your body that makes them unable to carry out the recovery processes and therefore get a fast recovery.

Here in our clinic in Nordicfysio we make sure to live (overcome) up to the first to factors, and about the third one we solve by using Scenar physio.
It consist in setting the energy the cells need (like recharging bateries) so they can start working better and thus the recovery process will get faster.

If you have more questions about why recovery takes time, I encourage you to stop by our Nordicfysio clinic in Punta Prima or contact us and we will see what the cause is and how we can solve it.

Most people don’t see a doctor until they feel pain and discomfort in their body. They do not know that we can avoid the suffering and deterioration of the organism with specific prevention actions.

The salutogenic model focuses on this.

Salutogenic model and prevention

The salutogenic model is based on studies by Aaron Antonovsky in the surviving women of the concentration camps.

They, despite having suffered extreme conditions of stress and suffering, were able to recover and improve.

The sociologist detected that there are two basic components to achieve this recovery: resources and a sense of coherence.

How does the salutogenic model influence the maintenance of health?

The means of recovery are linked to the terms or characteristics that people possess or that can be found in the environment; they can be knowledge, money, clothes, food, intelligence, etc.

We should identify them and then make use of them from the better way.

Appropriate and focused use of these resources helps create a sense of coherence of the individual, that is, the orientation he/she has towards life, a feeling of confidence in believing that everything will improve and go well.

Some researchers define it as a strategy to face the stress, to solve problems or overcome tragic events.

This would explain the health and well-being that some people achieve, and that allows them to achieve a higher quality of life.

Positive thinking, positive health

We must emphasize that health is related with psychosocial and physical factors, which can promote the well-being of people and pain reduction.

Among the healthy factors are the following:

• Personal satisfaction
• Altruistic actions
• Recognition of self-control
• Ability to solve problems
• Autonomy
• Valuable interpersonal relationships

Positive thoughts lead to healthy emotions (self-esteem, security, pride, love, fulfillment, etc.) and, in the end, they build the pillars of positive health.

Prevention and health

The salutogenic model proposes to provide people with knowledge and tools that allow them to take advantage of their own resources, enhance their quality of life and create healthy habits.

One of these primary tools is prevention.

It is an advantageous instrument to promote health.

It focuses on communities and individuals to make them aware of the importance of their positive actions in anticipating a pathological case.

‘Better safe than sorry’ popular wisdom says and, in the case of health, it is totally true.

Each person, through the use of available resources, can avoid conditions that lead to physical or mental illness.

What are the risk conditions?

They are the conditions that we must monitor every day or with the recommended frequency.

We can adopt the following prevention actions and habits:

• Eating a healthy diet

• Doing exercise

• Getting medical tests to detect hypertension, obesity, glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride or parasite levels.

• Giving up habits like smoking or drinking alcoholic beverages.

• Developing a sense of coherence aimed at well-being.

According to the information provided by World  Health Organization, chronic diseases include a 63% of annual deaths in all the world.

These diseases develop slowly and gradually, but their treatment and correction are possible with early detection.

These diseases include the following:

• Cardiovascular diseases such as metabolic syndrome, heart attack acute myocardial or stroke.
• Chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma.

• Diabetes.

• Oncological diseases such as cancer.

Why should we wait for an extreme case or a severe pain?

We can detect most diseases with properly diagnoses. It is easier to prevent and has less associated costs.

Types of prevention

There are three levels of prevention depending on when it is detects the state of the disease.

Primary prevention

It aims to prevent the onset of the disease by controlling the risk factors , so it is carried out in healthy individuals.

Some examples are vaccination campaigns, feeding campaigns, physical exercise or the reduction of domestic accidents.

Secondary prevention

It is focused on stopping or slowing down the process of a disease that has already begun.

The actions it includes are early detection, diagnosis and the treatment.

In this phase, the treatments are more efficient.

The campaigns to detect the cancer are an example of secondary prevention

Tertiary prevention

In this case, the person is already sick and prevention is carried out in order to delay or reduce the sequelae and complications of affectation.

It is intended to improve people’s quality of life.

Some examples are the therapy with children with Down syndrome or post-infarction rehabilitation.

Physiotherapy as a key element of prevention

The common thing is that we visit the physiotherapy clinic when we suffer an injury or we feel severe pain, but in rare situations, we consider it as a useful prevention tool.

Of course, physiotherapy is really important in the treatment of injured patients, but it also has a preventive competence, it is a sanitary branch.

• It serves to prevent injuries.

• It spreads postural corrections and it stimulates fitness with exercises that prevent musculoskeletal injuries.

• It promotes the reeducation of the body against repetitive movements.

• It stimulates the learning and practice of rehabilitation movements to increase muscle tone and posture.

• It teaches people how to do usual activities to avoid injury.

Physiotherapy in seniors

Nowadays, most people want to grow old healthy. For this, geriatric physiotherapy has a lot to offer.

It is dedicated to working with patients over 65 years of age in prevention of injuries or in the improvement of pathologies related to age such as loss of joint function, balance, or muscle mass.

The ailments that can occur with age have a solution.

Sometimes a personalized exercise program is enough and it is supervised by the physiotherapist.

They will help us maintain our autonomy and independence with physical and psychological benefits.

The premises of the salutogenic model have a highly potential beneficial for health and to reduce pain;

It is introduced gradually, and it includes prevention methods as well such as physiotherapy that will make us have a better state of health throughout our life.