Published on: 01 July 2022
Last Updated on: 19 February 2025
Back pain is a common issue, especially as you age. But, it’s not just older people that suffer, back pain can be caused by physically demanding jobs, poor training techniques, and trauma; In short, anyone can be affected and as many as 4 million Australians live with back problems.
The good news is that many cases of back pain can be treated and life quality can be maintained. Treatment options range from over-the-counter pain medication to an operation performed by a reputable spine surgeon.
Naturally, the best way to deal with back pain is to avoid it as much as possible.
A few simple changes to your lifestyle can make a surprising difference.
1. Avoid Sitting For Too Long
Your spine is a complex structure consisting of individual vertebrae separated by soft discs. This setup allows you to flex in most directions while supporting your body in an upright position.
The spine also has a hole running through the middle of it, creating a pathway for lots of nerves and protecting them.
When you sit the vertebrae move downward, with most of the pressure of your body sitting on the lower few vertebrae and discs.
When your spine is functioning normally the discos will actually inflate and deflate, allowing nutrients in and toxins out. But, when you sit the discs are compressed, toxins aren’t removed, and your back will start to cramp. Over time this develops into constant aches and pains.
2. Lifting Incorrectly
Professional weightlifters know that lifting is all about the legs. But, you don’t need to be a professional weightlifter to pick things up. It doesn’t even have to be heavy to damage your back.
Simply bending incorrectly and lifting something places excessive strain on your back. It can result in inflammation of the discs or even moving them. That means you’ll be in a lot of pain.
His mainly applies to women as high heels are one of the worst shoes you can wear for your back. By lifting your feet to an angle, high heels change the way your weight is distributed and reduce the support your feet offer to your back.
This means your spine will shift position slightly to accommodate the strain. It can result in a variety of aches and pains as your body moves in ways it’s not supposed to.
4. Posture
It’s inevitable that posture will be mentioned. Many people sit all day at a computer screen and, without meaning to, will hunch forward to see the screen or concentrate on a specific task.
The longer you adopt an incorrect posture the more likely it is you’ll affect the curvature of your spine and potentially create an array of back problems for the future.
If you stand all day keep your knees slightly bent and your weight on the balls of your feet. Sitting all day means keeping your feet flat on the floor and keeping your arms parallel to the ground. These small changes in habits can stop or prevent back pain from happening.
Arnab is a professional blogger, having an enormous interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, He carries out sharing sentient blogs.
Water, an undeniable necessity
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” -Leonardo da Vinci
Water is the undeniable necessity of life. A human body composes of 50 to 65 percent water and an infant is made up of 78 percent water. It forms the basis of existence for all living organisms and is one of the five major elements of nature, the other four beings; space, fire, air,and earth. The vital property of buoyancy of water provides relief to the beginner yoga enthusiasts who experience joint or muscle pain. It also helps in acclimatizing after an injury or surgery due to the upward force that minimizes the effects of gravity.
The concept of Aqua Yoga
Imagine a situation where your yoga instructor directs you to jump into a vibrating pool of water and drills you to perform various asanas with ease. Isn’t the thought of it just exhilarating? Indeed it is.
Yoga in water or Aqua Yoga is the art of practicing yoga in water. It has an extra benefit of exercising without sweat and paining muscles. Aqua yoga Asians develop flexibility and core strength. It is majorly practiced to relieve all the physical and mental pain and is specifically recommended for pregnant women and senior citizens.
The body only bears 20 percent of its weight while being chest-deep submerged in water. This property of water enables one to stretch deeper and easily balance, which is sometimes not even possible on land.
‘I was surprised by how much more flexible my body felt in the pool, and how easily I slipped into a meditative state.’ This statement by the famous yoga fanatic, Chelsey Hamilton further portrays the benefits of practicing yoga in water.
Origin of Aqua Yoga
“Yoga, an ancient but perfect science, deals with the evolution of humanity. Yoga means union - the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day to day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions.”
Yoga in its various forms originated about 5000 years ago in India and till date, it has experienced significant changes in its execution and practice due to change in the public’s perception and change in lifestyle. Aqua Yoga is one such change in execution. Due to the underlying benefits of exercising yoga in water, various yoga instructors started taking classes in pools and even the students benefitted in various ways from it. This resulted in the formation of yet another type of yoga i.e. Aqua yoga.
Different Asans in Aqua yoga
Some Aqua Yoga instructors follow the Bikram yoga practice and heat the pool to 88-92 degrees to aid with flexibility and relaxation. While the others preach asanas in normal temperature water. The practice of Aqua Yoga relives all the weight-bearing issues since it serves as a natural strut for helping the body to balance and stay upright. There are various asanas that can be performed underwater. Some of them are as follows:
Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand):
While performing headstands underwater, individuals must very comfortable underwater and holding your breath for a short time. Underwater headstands are significantly beneficial for improving breathing.
Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose):
This pose, when practiced underwater strengthens the thighs, ankles, abdomen, and buttocks. It also effectively stretches the groins, hamstrings, and calves.
Padangusthasana (Big Toe Pose)
This pose is one of the most exciting poses one can practice underwater. This yoga asan is useful in strengthening the back and arms as one expands and opens through the chest.
"The movements are very fluidic underwater, therefore it is easy for some people to focus more and achieve ideal results," says yoga expert Amrapali Patil. Aqua Yoga is indeed workout without pain and sweat and various yoga teacher training institutes in India preach it due to its usefulness.
Read also:
Bed Time Yoga To Sleep Well
Follow These 5 Yoga Poses To Reduce Stubborn Belly Fat
If you are someone that routinely follows the health and wellness industry, chances are that you have heard about Keto and Paleo diets. There are many proponents for both kinds of diets. In this article, we look at some of the elements associated with both and the effect that they have on weight control. Eating Good quality foods for diet can help you to maintain your diet in the right order.
Eating Good Quality Foods For Diet Is Essential For Everyone
There are several good quality foods for a diet you can maintain for every one to improve your business in the right direction.
Paleo Diet- What does it mean?
Fundamentally, the Paleo diet has been referred to as a cave dweller’s diet. Individuals eat food articles similar to the way as ancient human beings did. Their belief stems from the fact that this is a healthy way to sustain life. Eating good quality foods for your diet can make things more comfortable for your diet.
This hypothesis asserts that cutting edge nourishment handling is the essential driver of human medical issues. The proponents argue that in order to check and reduce weight, people need to "return" to the manner in which it was amid the mountain man period.
They think straightening out your dietary pattern to the ancient human beings, or to the Paleolithic era plan empowers the normal organic capacity of the human body to process food better thereby assisting in wellbeing.
Paleo Menu- What does it stand for?
Changing a human being’s dietary habit, according to a paleo diet means that an individual should stay away from and resist processed sources of food like grains, fruits, meats, and others. Now, you might be wondering as to what should be then eaten instead.
The food items that a Paleo diet entails consists of natural products and ingredients as are found in nature. In other words, food that has not been processed artificially. Items like eggs, seeds, nuts, meat, fish, and vegetables. Individuals are permitted to add a certain amount of oils and fats to their meals. Again, these should be natural, and not artificial. Ghee, avocado oil, natural fats are allowed.
To certain individuals, paleo is in excess of an eating routine. It centers on affecting the earth emphatically with the nourishment decisions we make. It is considered as a way of life, as a model choice of living that helps improve both the human body, as well as the environment around man.
Keto diet, then again, is an alternate eating routine with its very own reasoning.
Keto diet- What does it mean?
A Keto diet comprises of a type of diet, which is moderated by a high-fat quotient. The high fat is complemented by average protein intake, along with severely reducing the carbohydrate intake. It centers on controlling the body to revitalizing itself by putting away fats rather than starches. With a keto diet, the human body is supposed to be in a state, which is called ketosis! This is also the principle distinction between the two diets-keto and paleo. The distinction between the two comes forward through the changes in the consumption of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in food.
Fundamentally, a ketogenic diet should comprise of:
5% carbohydrates
25% protein
70% fat
The motivation behind fine-tuning the human body towards a keto diet is remarkable. The keto diet forces the body to burn fat, whenever energy is required by the body, thereby making the body perform optimally at high levels of energy at all times. This burns the fat, thereby reducing or keeping the weight in check for most who follow a keto diet.
Nonetheless, it is fundamental you carefully monitor the consumption of macronutrients. If you are unable to do so, it might unbalance your body’s digestion levels. Another noteworthy advantage of a keto based diet plan is adjusting the glucose levels and the human body’s weight reduction.
Differences between Keto and Paleo:
While keto limits the admission of carbohydrates, paleo permits a few entire nourishment wellsprings of sugars as long as it is in the adequate sustenance classes. A Ketodiet wants you to remain inside a predefined measure of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. However, paleo puts no limitations on macronutrients, but it permits exercises outside the accompanying the eating routine like care, and activities.
A Paleo diet does not allow processed sources of food items like soy, or dairy products. However, a keto diet permits consumption of dairy fat as well as soy; as long as they fall inside the predefined macronutrient go. Eating good quality foods for a diet is essential for you to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
In any case, the two weight control plans offer a sound way of life, yet a few people may think that its hard to keep up the keto diet, which includes computation of macronutrients, not at all like paleo that is fundamentally straight forward and offers a wide assortment of nutritious alternatives. Likewise, a great many people lean toward the paleo diet in light of its adaptability with nourishment decisions.
All in all, the two eating regimens are astonishing in their own right; the keto diet is successful for weight reduction and glucose control, while the paleo diet urges individuals to eat entire nourishments that are accessible to people amid the Paleolithic time.
Read Also:
5 Tips To Kick Start Your Fitness Routine
9 Magical Benefits Of A Vegetarian Diet
Why Have A Diet Chart For Weight Loss?
5 Ways You Can Be Inhibiting Your Fitness
Easy Diet Tips To Summer Six Pack Abs
Choosing A Diet Based On Your Personality Type
11 Foods You Must Incorporate Into Your Diet For Great Skin
Any Adult Gerontology Nurse Practitioner (AGNP), or individual considering moving into this booming area, will probably be aware that it involves more than supporting patients through short term illnesses or meeting their needs in a hospital or nursing home.
As a rule, the older a patient gets, the more likely they are to experience chronic health complications which interfere with their day-to-day tasks. For much of history, such patients were written off, encouraged to take to their beds and be supported entirely by others, doing very little. They often didn’t live very long. But all that changed on account of one remarkable nurse, Dorothea Orem, whose legacy continues to shape the nursing profession today. This article examines her groundbreaking self-care deficit theory and looks at how AGNPs might use it for their nursing career.
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was born in Baltimore in 1914 and studied nursing in the late 1930s. This was a time when nursing schools were still a new phenomenon and there was a lot of experimental thinking in the nascent profession. Though she spent time on the wards as a staff nurse, she also worked as an administrator and consultant over the course of her career, spending her later years focusing on theory.
A naturally focused and attentive person, she soon began recording observations about the patients she worked with, leading to her self-care deficit theory of nursing, for which she strongly advocated for her entire life. It was theory which, in its early years, transformed the way nurses thought about patients and their duties. It laid the foundations for nursing today.
Universal Self-Care Requisites
Orem’s theory recognizes eight universal self-care requisites, or SCRs. Here, universal refers to things every human needs, regardless of circumstance. Air is needed for respiration. Water is needed to maintain a healthy level of hydration. Food is needed to maintain healthy energy levels and prevent starvation. Elimination or toileting, a polite way of referring to the expulsion of urine and feces from the body, is required too.
In addition to these four things, Orem posits that every patient needs a balance of physical activity and rest. Everyone needs social interaction, but also some alone time. People need to manage their lives to avoid or remove hazards, and, finally, they need to promote normality. This means that they need to achieve and maintain a way of living and relating to the world which is normal for them as individuals and does not involve psychosis.
Health Deviation Self-Care Requisites
When patients are recovering from injury or illness, or living with a chronic illness or disability, they can be described as experiencing a health deviation. This is not pejorative – it simply establishes that they differ from the norm. Health deviations are more common in older demographics, as they have additional self-care requisites.
These requisites include following doctors’ instructions (taking medicine on time), identifying problems caused by their conditions and attending to them effectively (sitting down until a dizzy spell passes), and knowing when and how to seek help from a caregiver or healthcare professional.
It is also important that these patients can understand and accept that their bodies have changed and can adjust psychologically to cope with it.
What Is A Self-Care Deficit?
A self-care deficit occurs when people are no longer able to carry out basic tasks. This can be because a disability makes them physically impossible to perform, or a number of other reasons. For example, some people get so overwhelmed by the way their bodies have changed that they stop trying to live. This doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve sympathy – it is an understandable response to an extreme situation – but it might mean that there is potential for improvement.
For some people, self-care deficits are permanent or are likely to worsen due to progressive illnesses. For others, however, they can be temporary, even in extreme old age. Self-care deficits stemming from a broken arm, for example, will normally dissipate after the arm heals, but this is less likely if the patient has learned to feel helpless in the meantime.
Assessment, Diagnosis, And Implementation
When using Orem’s theory, nurses have three steps to work through. The first is undertaken during the initial assessment of a new patient and involves identifying any self-care deficits. These are not always obvious from looking at a patient and the process may require gentle but persistent questioning. Some people may be embarrassed and hesitant to talk if they are unable to care for themselves.
The second involves full diagnosis of the deficits, including establishing causes. The third step is to draw up a treatment plan based on these diagnoses. In her work, Orem stressed the importance of recognizing that every patient is a unique individual, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this type of planning. In each case, AGNPs will need to work with the patient to establish the most effective way forward.
Five Ways Nurses Can Help
There are five strategies nurses can use to address self-care deficits when establishing patient care plans:
For the most severely incapacitated patients, it may be necessary to perform actions on their behalf, such as washing or dressing them.
Patients struggling mentally or who lack confidence can be guided through actions, ideally to the point of independence.
Patients can be taught new ways of approaching day to day tasks which make them easier to accomplish, such as taking a break to have a shower in the afternoon if it is too hard to find the energy at other times.
AGNPs can focus on the patient’s environment, making it easier for them to carry out self-care activities, such as suggesting kitchen gadgets to reduce the physical effort involved in preparing meals.
Finally, AGNPs can train a family caregiver to provide appropriate support.
These five strategies involve numerous actions, skills, and tools that nurses can use. Patients may need particular assistance with the following tasks.
Helping With Eating
Patients should always be encouraged to do as much for themselves as is reasonably possible. When it comes to eating, nurses should start with encouragement. Many older people lose their appetite and don’t feel motivated to eat, especially when it requires effort. So, an AGNP can point out that they have more energy when they manage to eat regular meals.
If the patient can get food to their mouth by themselves, nurses should resist the temptation to assist, even if they sometimes drop the food. Instead, nurses can reassure them that this is not uncommon and all they need to do is take a little more time. Nurses should also be alert to the possibility of choking issues and arrange X-rays if concerned. If some food proves difficult to eat, they can discuss the possibility of dietary adjustments.
Helping With Toileting
Nurses should reassure patients that, awkward as they may feel, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. The nurse must ensure they can transfer on and off the toilet safely and consider options like raising the height of the seat or installing grab. If there is a risk of falling, AGNPs may suggest bedpans for use when no caregiver is present. If adult diapers are needed, nurses should ensure that patients know how and when to change them (even if they are not soiled) and how to protect their skin against rashes or bruises caused by wearing them. Finally, nurses can also discuss medical options for softening stools or speeding up or slowing down digestive transit.
Helping With Dressing And Grooming
A balance must be struck between helping patients be more independent in dressing and grooming themselves and enabling them to maintain a style or standard of appearance that is natural for them. Some older men prefer to be clean shaven but end up growing beards because it is easier to trim a beard than it is to shave safely and neatly, for example. Some clothing options can be easier to get into than others, depending on a patient’s particular mobility difficulties. Simple devices such as a stick with a hook on the end can make adjusting the back of a garment or doing up a zip much easier. Nurses should pay particular attention to footwear to make sure patients can stand or walk safely.
Reducing Hazards
Whether a nurse is helping a patient to move around and complete self-care tasks in a hospital ward, a care home, or their own home, they must always pay attention to hazard prevention. Hazards can include mess, a layout created without regard for disability, or other people or pets moving around. Nurses can start by ensuring that the patient is aware of the risks and can recognize dangerous situations.
They should discuss simple measures like installing handrails or changing routines to make it easier to keep the area tidy. Nurses can also ensure that the patient can summon help if something goes wrong, by persuading them to install an alarm system or carry a charged mobile phone at all times, for example.
Care With Communication
Often, older patients who have self-care deficits also have difficulty with communication, whether due to physical or cognitive disability. Depending on their lifestyle in recent years, they may also be unfamiliar with modern technologies, but shy about admitting this. It is important for nurses to make sure that when they are addressing issues around essential needs, the patient understand them properly and vice versa.
It can be helpful to use pictures in communication, which are often available in support materials. When meeting a patient in the place they are going to be living, the nurse and patient can explore it together (in stages, if necessary) so both parties can directly identify issues.
Seeing Each Patient As An Individual
An essential tenet of Orem’s theory is that patients must be treated as individuals. This increases the chance that they will stick to treatment plans, as well as directly improving their psychological wellbeing.
Any nurse that’s interested in Orem’s theory and is considering joining this field will be looking into gerontology nurse practitioner programs online. The best courses place a lot of emphasis on adaptability and on learning how to manage different types of patients in different environments. The program at the University of Indianapolis, for example, encourages students to develop the patience and listening skills essential to getting to know patients and making them a part of the process. This communication and relationship building is essential to developing plans which will really benefit patients over the long term. The course at the University of Indianapolis is an eight-semester program designed for working nurses, involving part-time study and an intensive clinical placement.
The Nursing Profession Continues To Benefit
Thanks to Orem and her self-care deficit theory, patients are no longer left to waste away as they begin to struggle with old age. Generations of nurses who have practiced this theory have observed that, even in later life, patients can often improve and regain their self- care abilities with the right support. Advances in assistive technologies continue to make this even easier.
The right support, focused on facilitating and encouraging independence, enables seniors to go on living satisfying lives on their own terms for much longer. Even when they need extensive practical support, giving them more control helps to maintain their morale and ability to navigate the final chapter of their lives. In the process of providing this support, AGNPs also get what they really want; to see their patients thrive, no matter what they must overcome to achieve it.
Additionals:
8 Awesome Health Benefits Of Dark Chocolate
Psychedelic Therapy for Mental Health Conditions
How Does Children’s Health Impact Parental Lifestyle?
