Dr Udoka Okafor, the National president of the Association of Clinical and Academic Physiotherapists of Nigeria, has cautioned people living with Arthritis to be mindful of the form of exercise they engage in as it could be detrimental to their overall health.
The expert stated this during the commemoration of the 2023 World Physiotherapy Day with the theme, ‘Arthritis and Forms of Inflammatory Arthritis’, held every September 8.
According to him, the day is an opportunity to educate people on the menace of arthritis and osteoarthritis and also the connection between arthritis and other diseases of civilisation.
The physiotherapist explained that arthritis is a degenerative change of any joint.
“Any change in the joint that would cause pain, swelling reduced range of motion of the joint is called arthritis.
“Arthritis is loosely categorised into two depending on the cause: whether it is a result of ageing – degenerative – or if it is inflammatory arthritis, caused by infection or other causes where there’s usually swelling, tenderness, and painfulness of the affected joint.
“For arthritis, we use the word ‘degenerative’, which refers to changes that have to do as a person gets older. It affects the larger joints of the body: the hip, shoulder, knee, neck, and joints of the lower back while inflammatory arthritis affects mainly the smaller joints of the body and it causes swelling”, he explained.
Speaking against the backdrop of this year’s commemoration, the physiotherapist warned that people living with Arthritis should consult a physiotherapist to know the forms of exercises they could engage in, as certain exercises could worsen their health outcomes.
“There are specific exercises recommended for a person living with arthritis. There are exercises that a patient living with arthritis should keep away from.
“An example is jogging. A patient who does a lot of jogging lands on the body weight and the body weight is impactful on the knee joint. The most common joints of the body affected by osteoarthritis are the hip, knee and ankle joints.
“So, each time a person jogs, you land on those joints and if those joints are already affected by arthritis, it means that you are weakening the joints the more.”