The body and mind will be refreshed if you cleanly remove the old dirt accumulated in various parts of the house with a spring cleaning, but it requires heavy physical labor than usual housework. Repeatedly sweeping and wiping every nook and cranny will inevitably put strain on the joints. Before spring cleaning, let’s know tips to reduce the strain on your joints.
Mopping requires effort to reduce irritation to the knee
In our sedentary lifestyle, cleaning with a mop is essential. If you squat or kneel and wipe the floor or dust from every nook and cranny for a long time, you need to be careful about the pain that occurs in the knee. The kneeling position on the floor puts excessive pressure on the patella in front of the knee, and the squatting position increases the bending angle of the knee and a large load is applied. In fact, there are many cases of pain or discomfort just below the kneecap after mopping. Anterior knee pain syndrome, which is caused by continuous and repetitive movement, progresses to degenerative arthritis if not treated in a timely manner. Kwon Tae-yoon, director of Orthopedic Surgery at Himchan Hospital, said, “Anterior knee pain syndrome is a kind of inflammatory reaction and is medically expressed as ‘swollen cartilage’ or ‘inflammatory reaction’. If you feel it, it is important to reduce external stimuli.”
Avoid kneeling or squatting mopping positions. When cleaning low places, use a bath chair or the like to lower the knee bend angle and distribute the load by placing your buttocks on it. It is recommended to use a push-type mop that can be done standing up. Strengthening the thigh muscles around the knee through stretching and exercise is also very effective in preventing pain.
Sit with one knee bent and the other knee straight, leaning against the wall. Fold the towel under the knee of the flattened leg to an appropriate height and press the towel gently with your knee for 5 seconds while standing and pulling your foot toward your body. The knee undergoes rapid degenerative changes, and many housewives ignore the pain caused after housework due to chronic knee pain. If you feel pain when getting up from the floor or on stairs or inclines, you should start treatment to prevent the degenerative arthritis from progressing quickly.
Constant attention to hands and arms, repetitive stimulation
When cleaning, the arms of housewives are constantly moving. It is easy to suffer from pain from fingers to wrists and arms while wiping everything from washing blankets and curtains to stains in the bathroom and kitchen. Conservative treatment is possible if the pain is dealt with in the early stages, but there are few cases of visiting the hospital in the early stages, and patients visit the hospital only after passing time and gradually developing strong pain. Many housewives think of pain in their wrists and elbows as an abnormality in their bones, joints, and muscles, but rather tendinitis, which is caused by straining the tendons, is often the cause. Tendonitis of the wrist and epicondylitis of the elbow are the most common types of tendonitis.
A hay made to reduce friction when the ligaments pass through the joint is wrapped around the tendon, and if it is used excessively, microscopic damage continues to accumulate in the joint due to excessive friction, causing an inflammatory reaction in the hay. Housewives who mainly do housework experience pain in the wrist under the thumb. Also, it is common to have tendonitis caused by the rupture of the tendon of the upper condyle (the bone protruding from the inside and outside of the elbow) of the elbow when excessive force is given to the entire arm joint. Jinwoo Kang, director of Himchan Hospital’s orthopedic surgery department, said, “Tendonitis in the wrist and elbow hurts the part where the tendon passes, making it difficult to move the hand with force. However, it is important to rest and avoid irritation to the painful area as much as possible.”
Tendonitis is caused by sudden excessive use of the hands and arms. If you feel pain while cleaning, stop for a while, and when cleaning, family members should share. In order to prevent it, it is necessary to secure the flexibility of the joint by stretching enough before and after using the joint a lot. If you are doing a job that requires continuous use of your joints, it is recommended to take regular rest and manage it with a poultice or massage after finishing it.