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Month: September 2022

Avoid The Ageing Process

Posted on by Jake Jackson

Lifestyle factors like exercise and diet can be as important as genetics when it comes to living long and growing old gracefully. It’s no secret that growing older brings natural change, affecting nearly every part of our body, but giving ourselves a fighting chance at aging well could be as simple as adopting these healthy (and mostly easy) everyday habits. We’ve approached physiotherapists and dietitians to pick their brains about sustainable ways to help us feel younger.

One such way is to eat nutrient-rich, whole foods. Nutrition plays a major role in how our body ages. A holistic, nutrient-rich diet rich in plant-based foods, whole grains, nuts, seafood and healthy fats, even a glass of red wine (in moderation), helps us to age better by warding off heart attacks, strokes, and premature death. An added bonus is that foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, such as walnuts, extra-virgin olive oil, and salmon help our skin manufacture the essential oils it needs to protect itself and can help skin look younger.

In contrast, sugary, carbohydrate-heavy, and unhealthy fatty foods—think, chips, soft drinks, and white bread—can actually speed up the ageing process.

Extra-virgin olive oil is another stellar ingredient to incorporate into our daily life. Packed with antioxidants that help reduce oxidative damage and inflammation caused by free radicals, extra-virgin olive oil may also protect skin elasticity and help to keep skin looking younger.

Stock your pantry with avocados. Why? Because avocados are high in unsaturated fats and fibres that promote skin health. The monounsaturated fats in avocados promote the formation of a healthy skin membrane. At the same time, the high antioxidant levels fight radicals that promote skin damage and ageing, which overall results in younger-looking skin. Let’s not forget about hydration! Regular water intake is essential for maintaining the skin’s balance and tissue function.

A dietician can assess the many factors in a person’s life that impact on their nutritional status and health. Each person has different priorities, motivations and goals when it comes to ageing well. There are also varying levels of income, knowledge, mental health, stress, physical abilities, mobility and cooking facilities that can impact on someone’s nutritional status and health outcomes.

To learn more about healthy eating habits, contact Emma, our dietitian, who will be more than happy to help with any enquiries you may have.

Ensuring that our body’s cells are young and healthy is one of the keys to staying young. Exercise improves the circulation of blood oxygen, and essential nutrients to all of the body’s vital organs, including the skin. Persistent physical activity helps keep our body young on both the inside and out.

Growing old gracefully has a lot more to do with overall health than mere looks. It mainly encompasses the way we feel. An older individual with no health problems has aged well, no matter what he or she looks like. Still, physically healthy people do tend to look younger even in old age.

Whilst some stress is necessary to keep us motivated, excessive stress places strain on our immune system, messes with our hormones, slows our metabolic rate and increases our fat storage. Exercises such as pilates classes and yoga are a way of reducing stress. Pilates exercises are also designed to give us better functional control with all our day-to-day activities and has a whole range of benefits such as improved flexibility, posture, strength and increased energy levels.

Regular exercise is one of the most effective ways to reduce our biological age. It has been shown to improve mood, brain function and the body’s antioxidant defence mechanism. Whilst decreasing pain and reducing depression. It has also been shown to reduce the risks of Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes and dementia. Research indicates that intense interval exercise is more beneficial to the body than long-duration, lower intensity exercise. However, to ensure we can achieve this without hurting ourselves, we must build up slowly.

Like anything, aging can be a positive or negative experience. We don’t have total control over what our experience will be, but we can steer it in a positive direction. A physiotherapist can show you how to incorporate different types of exercise techniques into your daily routine. This includes proper posture and lifting strategies that will reduce the occurrence of injury and help prevent your exercise routine from becoming interrupted.

Listen to Atticusphysio Wendy Doan’s, podcast on Injury Prevention.

Exercise really can help us stay young both physically and mentally. But if we want to make it work, eating nutrient-rich, whole foods and drinking plenty of water is essential. Watch what you put into your body. And lastly, enjoy some exercise.

When did you grow old?

Posted on by Jake Jackson

When I used to study for exams in med school, I remember sitting in the library and I used to like listening to music. One band I really liked at the time (and still now) was Placebo. They had one song, “Every You Every Me” that I listened to on and on and on. In fact, one day I was studying in the library and I listened to that one song, on repeat, I think virtually the whole day. I was sitting at a desk, having to stop myself from shaking my legs from the energy. And I did study, I didn’t fail anything anyway.

On Sunday 12 September I was in a “fun run”. Now we all know what that means for anyone who actually likes to push themselves – pain. And by 11km, I was in some. There was a bunch of young guys, I reckon even still teenagers, and they had Hawaiian shirts on. They overtook me. They were coasting and I was pushing. Now, I started to listen to a song, not quite Placebo, but Ben Harper, a particular song, “Amen Omen”. And I got into a rhythm. And I caught up and overtook them and stayed in front – at least for a while. I know, “fun run”. But you know, gotta have a go, right?

The point I make is, when did I get old? Was it when I dislocated my right shoulder and couldn’t really serve properly in tennis? Was it when my hairline started receding and my nose hairs began to turn grey? Was it when I first felt betrayed and let down? Was it when people died around me?

No, I became old when I let myself.

Now, there are many virtues to growing old, approaching a sense of “wholeness”. For a man, perhaps getting in touch with the feminine components of oneself. Feelings, understanding. There are many virtues. Forgetting ego for me has been one. I ain’t no James Bond and I never will be – that’s fine. Reluctantly, I get it.

But to grow old and lose passion for life, well that’s a state of mind. And whether we like to admit it or not, to that degree, it’s a choice. It creeps up on us, writing ourselves off, slowly, day by day. Losing that “fire in the belly”.

My teenage son’s downstairs with a friend right now, shooting hoops. Every time I look at them, they’ve got a cheeky look, like they’ve been up to something I shouldn’t know about. I’m worried, but I marvel and appreciate their zest for life all the same. There seems to be so much of the world opening up for them.

Am I the same? I’m not sure. Could I be the same? Absolutely, as long as I maintain that state of mind, and don’t lose that glint.

Anyway, my daughter’s dragging me out for another run. Knee replacement – yip, maybe one day I’ll need one, but damn – for all the good times I’ve had running – it’ll be worth it.

Whether it’s music, running, cooking or whatever – never let go of what gives you a “glint” – and, whether it looks pretty or not – do it! Play hard. Forever.

Injury Prevention with Wendy Doan

Posted on by Jake Jackson

Brett: Welcome, everybody to the street clinics podcast. My name is Brett. And today in the Dratticus Labs studio, we have Wendy, who is the new physiotherapist working for Atticus Health. Hi, Wendy.

Wendy: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Brett: Thank you for joining us on this Monday morning.

Wendy: Yeah, thanks for inviting me here. It’s really cool.

Brett: I really appreciate it. And for the listeners, do you want to give the listeners a bit of introduction to who you are?

Wendy: Yeah, of course. So my name is Wendy. I’ve been practicing for a couple of years now. I graduated from Monash University in 2019, with a Bachelor of physiotherapy, with honors. And then after graduating, I decided I wanted to travel Europe for a bit. And so my plan was to work in an aged care as a locum for a couple months and then head off to Europe. And unfortunately, COVID happened so I wasn’t able to go. But I knew I wanted to work in like a private practice clinic. And so I found a clinic out in the western suburbs of Melbourne. And so I worked there for about almost two years. And that was an awesome clinic, I had a lot of exposure to like a wide variety of conditions and diseases. And my youngest patient will probably be around six or eight years old. And my oldest patient would be above 80 years old. So I had like a really good exposure to lots of different types of people and conditions. And it was also a clinic that was very pilates focused. And so during that time, I completed some studies in clinical pilates as well. And at that time, I was also working as the physiotherapist for University Blues Football Club, which is based out of Melbourne Uni. Then I decided to have a little change. And so I moved to another clinic in Bayside, and that was more sports and exercise, rehab, a lot of gym focus work. And then I took on a role this year, Beaumaris soccer club as their head physio. And yeah, and then I also just recently completed my level one strength and conditioning coach, so that’s been awesome. And now I’m here at Atticus.

Brett: I look forward to talking to you, about some tips, but before we do this, it would be great if you could tell the listeners, what a physiotherapist does?

Wendy: So, physiotherapists are first contact practitioners and so you don’t need a referral to come to see us. I’ll talk more about physiotherapist and kind of my settings. So your muscle skeletal sports, physios that you normally see in a private clinic or like a medical clinic. So normally, clients or patients present to us with some sort of problem. And most of the time that is pain. And so people come to see us to treat their pain. And so we use evidence based practice in order to clinically assess the contributing factors to someone’s issues. And then we do a treatment plan to kind of address those contributing factors to help achieve their goals. And so yeah, so we’re using a wide variety of techniques and treatment plans to kind of achieve a patient’s goals. At Atticus health we’re doing some workplace health as well, so we do a lot of pre-employment screening medicals, and also like return to work clearances.

Brett: Awesome. I guess as someone who has worked full time throughout the COVID pandemic, what was some of the common injuries that you saw?

Wendy:
Yeah, good question. So actually, I had this conversation with a lot of my colleagues and one thing we noticed across the whole board was we saw a lot of postural and load related injuries and pain. And so we saw a lot of spinal pain and that so you get a lot of your cervical pain, neck pain, a lot of neck stiffness and or hypermobility. And also a lot of cervicogenic headaches. So headaches that originate from the neck and it’s all due to just working from home poor setups. Less physical activity as well, because if you imagine, people weren’t traveling to work, so they’re not getting that incidental exercise in as well. And then we got a lot of mid back thoracic stiffness and pain. We also saw a lot of lower back stiffness and pain as well. And the other thing that we saw a lot was spinal related neurological issues. And all these conditions, particularly with the spine, they’re also stress related as well. And so we saw during COVID, stress went up, physical activity went down. And so we’re getting a lot of his spinal pain that’s directly related to stress and stuff like that. And then interestingly, the other thing that we saw a lot of was running related injuries, because obviously, people couldn’t go to the gym. And so a lot of people took up running, including myself.

Brett: At Atticus health, we’ve got a large focus on preventative health. So in terms of both, working from home and running as the weather gets nicer, now we want to get out. We were just talking about that before. What sort of tips could you give people, that are both, working from home, which, obviously still continues to happen, there are still a lot of people that are working from home. So it’s important that, they can keep moving. So what sort of tips could you give people that are working from home?

Wendy: Yeah, great question. so now we’ve kind of moved away from, ideal posture at home. And so, physios were tending to move towards the best posture is kind of your next posture. And so the more you move, the better it is for your joints in your body. And so I always tell my patients and clients that, you’re never going to be able to maintain eight hours of perfect posture, like gravity is always going to win. We know that. So I always say, make sure you move a lot, put an alarm on your phone for every hour to just get up and move. And I think a lot of people now an apple watch or a Fitbit. And that actually reminds you to stand up and move every hour as well. It’s a great way to set up. Sometime it’s just a reminder, because you’re working away and you forget, you do forget to stand up and move and you don’t realize you’ve been sitting there for such a long time. So yeah, I use it myself. And the other thing is like drinking heaps of water, so you have to get up & go to the bathroom, or just like actually scheduling breaks and actually taking them throughout the day. And sometimes that’s not possible, sometimes you’re not going to be able to stand up every hour because of work, but just trying to move more. Yes, really key. And then the other thing is just making sure you have a good ergonomic setup. So I know a lot of the big companies, they actually set up their employees really, really well. But a lot, a lot of the smaller companies just don’t have the resource to do that. And so I give some quick tips to my patients is that your eyes should be 90 degrees towards the screen, your elbows and your knees should be at 90 degrees, your feet should be flat on the floor. So you shouldn’t be in any awkward positions where you can’t maintain a neutral spine and then also investing in a standing desk is really helpful. I remember my brother got some really bad mid back pain and I recommended him to get a standing desk and that actually really helped him a lot to just be able to stand and sit and stand and sit. So that’s what I recommend. And then also just doing some sort of physical activity for 30 minutes a day. So making sure you do your strength training now could just be 10 minutes of some sort of YouTube exercise. 10 to 30 minutes of some sort of like cardiovascular exercise, so that might be just walking It might be a 10 minute skip, it might be a little jog or a bike or a swim. So whatever works within your schedule, and then some sort of like mobility programs, you’re not getting too stiff, and you’re like moving the joints around as much as you can. And so that’s what I recommend. And it’s hard. It is hard to achieve initially, but I think we, we just need to prioritise our health, because a lot of the time, patients come to me once they have pain. And once you have pain, it’s actually hard to treat. It’s actually very easy to prevent it. Yeah. And so that’s why I’m really big on preventing health, and we don’t really want to see our patients unless we have to. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,

Brett:Absolutely. I think for me, it’s always, as you said, it’s always hard to get started. Are there any tips that you could give to people to, start on that journey and start building? Like, creating those habits?

Wendy: I say, keep your goals quite low and achievable. For me, because I’ve been quite active for quite a long time, it’s easy for me to just get in 30 minutes of exercise. But for someone who has not been active at all, it’s actually really, really hard to achieve even 30 minutes. And so I say, have small goals that are achievable, and start really small. And so that might mean, you’re doing literally two minutes. Exercise. Yeah, you know, or it might be I’m gonna stand for five times during my eight hour working day. Yeah. And then you slowly build up from there. And it’s always the first three or four weeks is going to be hard. But then once you actually do it, it actually just becomes a habit just like brushing your teeth and all that stuff. And so I like to think of your small, achievable goals, because it makes you feel good. And you get that dopamine hit. And then you just keep going, keep going. Keep going. Don’t look at other people, just work within your own limits.

Brett: Nice. Yeah, that’s really good advice. So recently, you released a video on running, which is, which is really cool. What common injuries do you find in the people that you trade in and the runners that you trade at the moment?

Wendy: I train a lot of recreational runners. And so particularly during lockdown, I saw a lot of running related injuries that were because of a too big of an increase in load. And the capacity of that person was not there yet to meet that load. And so we saw a lot of things like your shin splints, which is probably the number one running condition. I see. And I actually got it myself as well, which I was pretty upset about, because I’m a physio, so I should know better. So a lot of that, and then we saw a lot tendon related injuries that are related directly to load. And so we saw a lot of Achilles tendinopathy, also gluteal tendinopathies. And that’s more common in your middle age woman. And then we also saw some hamstring tendinopathies, as well. And that’s across all ages. And then we also got a lot of knee pain, so your osteoarthritis in the older patient, and then just like patellofemoral pain, which is just anterior knee pain, and that’s across all ages, and sexes as well.

Brett: In terms of those preventative tips. And you had the shin splints? Well, what did you do? How did you overcome that?

Wendy: So the reason I got it was because I did too much too soon. I did speed work, but I also increased my kilometers that day, as well. And so the number one tip, I would say for runners is to manage your load. So you should not be increasing your kilometers or speed by more than 20% each week. So that’s the general rule. I say. Yeah. And so for example, if you’re doing 10 ks over the whole week, you shouldn’t be doing 15 ks next week, because that’s more than that. 20% Yeah. And the other thing is, you should not be changing two things at once. So for me, I increase my kilometers and I increase my speed. So changing true factors, and so you shouldn’t do that. So the factors that you can kind of control are your speed, your distance or kilometers. And your intensity. Yeah. And then the other things that you need to consider is like the shoes you’re wearing, the surfaces you are running. going on and track you’re running on. And so you shouldn’t be changing your shoes and also increasing your speed at the same time, if that makes sense.

Brett: Yeah, so don’t change more than one factor.

Wendy: Yes, need to give your body time to adapt. Yeah. And so number one was managing the load to with don’t change two things at once. Number three is adding in a strengthening program has been shown to reduce or like mitigate the risk of injury by whatever percentage it is by a lot. And a lot of the time someone comes in with a running related injury is because they don’t have that capacity to meet the load. So they’re weak. And so just adding in a simple strengthening program that targets the lower body. So your calf, your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes, your core, can really help mitigate the risk of injuries that we mentioned. Yeah, and making sure you’re filling yourself up well, and then also doing a good warm up doing a good call down. Yeah, as well. And then also making sure because I know a lot of the runners, they tend to run because they have an event that they’re working towards. So some sort of fun, run some sort of marathon 5k 10k, whatever it is. So you should give yourself sufficient time in order to build up towards that event. So you shouldn’t be training for a half marathon four weeks out. Yeah. Some people do that. And some people do get away with it. To me, it really is amazing that that’s obviously like a bit of genetics as well. But I would always recommend to be safe need to give yourself sufficient time in order to train up towards it, because you need to have a training program that’s progressive. Yeah. And then leading up to the event, you need to taper down. So you’re not hitting that 21 km’ss at a half marathon a week out otherwise, you just burn your body out.

Brett: Floyd are you listening to this? Awesome, thanks for your time, Wendy. So where will you be consulting?

Wendy: I’m at hardware Lane Mondays Tuesday. Thursday. I’m at Hastings Saturdays at the moment.

Brett: We’re really excited to have you on board. Once again, thank you for your time and coming into the studio. It’s always nice to have the guests in the studio when we can. It’s nice to be able to talk in person. We’re really appreciate it and all the best with Atticus health.

Wendy: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Brett: Thank you. Thank you to all the listeners. Hope you got something out of the tips from Wendy today, and we’ll see you next time.