The Spinal Problems due to Postures

With the advent of old age, the features of the body start changing. But these imminent effects of old age could be reduced and made less severe by adopting a proper lifestyle.

Spine
Wikimedia Commons by Arcadian

The height of the body starts decreasing in old age. After the age of 40 years, the people start losing a centimeter of height in each decade. At the age of 70 this decrease becomes faster. The wrong posture is one of the biggest reasons for this decrease.

It is a common knowledge that a proper posture should be necessarily adopted as they are formed by the small rings of the backbone. The shape of the backbone in side view looks like a capital letter S. These small convex curvatures of spine are called kyphosis. But the bent shape of these rings is not a disease or deformity.  

The right posture means that all the curves of the backbone  align in proper direction so that the weight of the body may get equally distributed and made to fall on each curve equally.

If the posture is not right then some parts or areas of backbone get the pressure of extra weight especially in the region below waist

During the daily chores, the backbone regularly bears the burden of the body weight. In this process several parts of the backbone get deformed and this degeneration increases with old age. The following are some of the age related backbone problems.

Osteoporosis

This common problem is related with the decreasing density of the bones in old age. The symptoms of it appear only when any bone fracture occurs. The parts like hips and spine which bear the weight of the body are the major victims of the disease. Hunch is also a symptom of osteoporosis.

Disk Degeneration

The spine consists of several bone joints or the disks that act as a cushion to the vertebra. At the time of birth, these discs contain a liquid. In youth the spine helps in proper flow of liquid, takes nutrients from it and flushes out the discarded matter, in order to strengthen and make the discs healthy.

As the spine heads towards old age, it becomes hard and the liquid does not flow properly. The discs become dry due to loss of liquid and lose the ability to bear the shocks. Hence the problem of disk degeneration arises which causes severe pain in waist and hips.

Spinal Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is the simplest form of arthritis which first of all attacks the weight bearing parts of the body. In spinal osteoarthritis it becomes impossible to bend down or move the waist. Further the cartilages in vertebra start tearing and the problem of vertebral joints arises.  The vertebra start rubbing and grinding against each other which makes the movements difficult.