I have been treating an elderly woman who’d had rotator cuff surgery, and was not doing her recommended therapy as described. End result? She had a frozen shoulder. Know this fact: if you don’t move a joint, it will stiffen up on you, with something called metabolic glue. I won’t get into all of the physiological details, but think of this scenario; put your arm in a sling for 2 weeks, then take the sling off and try to move it. Verrry difficult. This is a common occurrence in many joint surgeries; it hurts to move it in certain ways, so you don’t move it. The big problem, soon you won’t be able to move it in those areas which caused discomfort, which = frozen joint syndrome. Most common joints are the shoulder and the knee, and the procedure is putting one under via general anesthesia, breaking the scar tissue, and then having someone like the Marquis De Saad (spelling?) or myself, come by and move it for you, at least for the first couple of weeks.
I was scheduled to see this patient every day for 2 weeks, and the sessions would consist of this: me moving her arm in the shoulder socket, her crying, cussing, and screaming, then walking me to the door and thanking me. WOW! The first time it happened I felt very confused. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that most of us know what’s good for us, and even though we may not have the motivation to do it ourselves, we appreciate when someone else gives us a nudge in that direction. This is my niche in life-so it goes……..
New research confirms what most of us intuitively know. Exercising improves intelligence in our kids. Perhaps what we didn’t know is that it appears aerobic exercise enlarges two areas of the brain: the hippocampus and the basal ganglia. Together they allow some of the most intricate thinking. regardless of weight, kids that exercised aerobically, not strength trained, scored higher on IQ tests in a pre and post test setting. Even small amounts of aerobic activity (20 minutes of walking) were associated with a higher IQ. It is thought that aerobic exercise stimulates cerebral growth factors that strength training does not. This isn’t to say that kids shouldn’t strength train-just make sure that they act like kids; run, jump, climb, etc…
Stay well, John R Blilie,