In life, it is inevitable that people will fall; many people may just bruise the epidermis after a fall, but in serious cases, it will also injure the local tissues, leading to hematoma and even fractures. Especially for the elderly, falling is a very scary thing. According to statistics, more than 30% of people over the age of 65 in China will experience a fall; and most of them will suffer a fracture after a fall.
After a fracture, it is difficult for the bone to recover, and it may bring many sequelae to the elderly, seriously affecting their normal life. In order to avoid fractures due to falls, older people need to find ways to protect their bones and increase their resilience to prevent fractures. What nutrients do older adults need to keep their bones healthy? And what are some of the ways you can prevent fractures? We'll find out.
With age, the body of the elderly are constantly declining, the loss of nutrients, hormone levels are also declining, the quality of the body will be more and more poor. Even some older people suffer from a variety of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, hyperglycemia, cardiovascular disease, and so on, which can greatly increase the risk of the elderly falling.
Elderly people are prone to falls in addition to the deterioration of physical fitness, but also with sedentary inactivity has a relationship.
Sitting still for a long time every day will greatly increase the probability of falling, and the risk of fracture will also increase. In daily life, older people are prone to falls when getting up, bathing, getting up at night, and getting in and out of the car, so they must be careful.
There are a lot of older people suffering from osteoporosis, and osteoporosis can also easily cause older people to fall and cause fracture problems. Osteoporosis is caused by a loss of bone mass and degradation or damage to the structure of bone tissue, leading to brittle bones, which increases the risk of fracture. Generally a loss of 20% or more of bone mass can lead to fractures in the elderly. The areas where osteoporosis patients are most likely to fracture are the hip bones, vertebrae, and forearm bones.
Some older people are at high risk for cardiovascular disease, and a fall not only leads to a fracture, but also accelerates the development of cardiovascular disease, or even makes it worse. So falls can be scary things for seniors.
1, the impact of the fracture
The elderly after the fracture, may lead to deformation of the joints, affecting the joint function ; and the joints after the recovery, but also may leave the patient with a certain aftereffects, such as deformation of the joints or the joints of the inflammation of the joints after the people may lose The problem is that it is not possible to get rid of them. In the case of a serious fracture, the blood vessels in the bone may rupture, leading to hemorrhaging ; if the amount of bleeding is relatively large, the patient may go into shock, or even die.
Fractures in the elderly occur mostly in the vertebrae, hip, and wrist. Among them, hip fractures are the most serious problem. Hip fractures lead to a very high probability of disability or even death in the elderly, which may make the elderly chronically ill and unable to get out of bed, triggering a number of complications such as pneumonia, hemorrhoids, and cardiovascular and cerebral vascular diseases; these complications may lead to death in the elderly.
Some data show that 35% of older adults with hip fractures are unable to walk, 42% are unable to regain the mobility they had before the fall, and 20% to 30% die. In addition, if the fracture site is the spine, patients may experience spinal cord or nerve damage, triggering neurological dysfunction and, in severe cases, paraplegia. Fractures in the elderly can also cause damage to the urethra or bladder, which can lead to problems such as urinary tract disorders or infections.
2. What to do after the fracture
If an elderly person falls and suffers a fracture, he or she needs to determine where the fracture is. If it's a wrist fracture, it can be fixed by splinting or resetting, and it won't affect your normal life. If it is a hip fracture, the patient can have a replacement joint surgery, which can ensure the function of the lower limbs. If the patient's health condition is not good, it can not be operated, and can be treated conservatively.
General elderly people have chronic diseases, fracture is very easy to cause chronic disease aggravation ; and after the fracture of long-term bedridden may make the patient some complications, so the elderly fracture need to be treated in a timely manner.
It is important to remember that the elderly can not get up immediately after the fall, because it is not possible to determine what part of the body is injured in a short period of time; If the injury is lumbar vertebrae, the elderly fall immediately after the fall will make the lumbar vertebrae problem more serious, and may even be life-threatening . Therefore, the elderly should shout for help after the fall, and call the emergency number in time.
Fractures can have a serious impact on an older person's health, so it's especially important to prevent them. After the age of 40, people start to lose nutrients from their bones; and the loss of calcium and vitamin D is a key factor in the occurrence of fractures in the elderly.
When calcium and vitamin D are missing from the body, the bone cortex of the skeleton becomes thinner and the bones are less able to withstand it, which increases the risk of people developing osteoporosis. In order to prevent osteoporosis and prevent fractures, it is important for older people to take more of these two nutrients, which can reduce the risk of fractures by 33% .
1, supplemental calcium
Calcium is an indispensable trace element in the human body, the human physiological function has a very important regulatory function, it can regulate the body's acid-base balance. The main component contained in the bones is calcium, and sufficient calcium can ensure the health of our bones.
Adults generally need to supplement 800 milligrams of calcium per day, and the elderly need to increase the daily supplemental calcium, because the elderly on the absorption of calcium is weaker than the young. Elderly people need to supplement about one thousand milligrams of calcium per day; you can get calcium in your daily diet by eating foods that are high in calcium .
Elderly people can get calcium by consuming the right amount of dairy products every day; dairy products are high in calcium and are a good choice for calcium supplementation.
A lot of people don't like dairy products, or are allergic to dairy; they can choose to eat some calcium-rich soy products, seafood, black fungus, eggs and other foods.
Shrimp is the highest calcium content of a food, every hundred grams of shrimp will have more than 900 milligrams of calcium. However, the salt content in shrimp is very high, and older people should not consume a lot of shrimp in order to replenish calcium, otherwise they will make themselves develop high blood pressure and other problems.
Older people can also eat more calcium-rich vegetables in their daily lives, such as capers, fennel, broccoli and so on. Just some vegetables contain oxalic acid, oxalic acid will affect the body's absorption of calcium, the elderly can blanch the vegetables before eating.
Some seniors can't get the amount of calcium they need from food, so they can take calcium tablets to get more calcium. However, although the calcium content of calcium tablets is high, it also contains citric acid, calcium carbonate and some other substances, which are generally not easily absorbed by the body.
Older people who eat too much calcium tablets, not only can not achieve the effect of calcium supplementation, but also may lead to the loss of calcium in the body. And too much calcium buildup in the body can not be absorbed, will also be detrimental to the body. So elderly people who want to take calcium supplements through calcium tablets need to control the dosage.
2, supplemental vitamin D
The elderly in the supplemental calcium at the same time also need to supplement the appropriate amount of vitamin D. Studies have found that vitamin D on the prevention of cancer, immune system dysfunction, depression and other diseases are very helpful. Adequate vitamin D can promote the body's absorption and utilization of calcium, can reduce bone loss, which can greatly reduce the risk of fracture .
Foods containing vitamin D include animal offal, nuts, deep-sea fish, butter, mushrooms, and egg yolks, but the content is relatively low. In addition to dietary supplementation of vitamin D, the elderly also need to sunbathe more often to supplement calcium and vitamin D are very helpful; the human body can synthesize its own vitamin D through exposure to sunlight.
Therefore, the elderly in the supplementation of calcium and vitamin D at the same time need to be more outdoor activities, sunbathing; it is recommended that elderly people exposed to the sun every day Some older people may not be able to synthesize enough vitamin D to meet their body's needs, so they can take vitamin D supplements under a doctor's supervision to replenish their vitamin D deficiencies.
As long as seniors have adequate calcium and vitamin D intake every day, their bones will be strong and healthy, which will reduce the risk of falling; it will also increase the bone density of seniors, reduce the damage to bones caused by falls, and avoid the risk of fractures. Older people also need to have regular body checkups, and if there is a calcium deficiency or loss of calcium in the body, be sure to follow your doctor's instructions for calcium supplementation.
People need healthy bones to be able to function normally. Older people are prone to calcium loss and osteoporosis, which can lead to fractures when they fall. In order to protect the bones and joints, prevent osteoporosis and fractures, the elderly in addition to adequate nutrition, but also in the usual do the following things .
1, the elderly should be appropriate outdoor exercise
not only can enhance the body's immunity, to promote blood circulation; but also can make the bones and muscles more tough, have the strength, effective prevention of osteoporosis, reduce the probability of fracture. Note that the elderly must choose their own way of exercise and the amount of exercise, such as playing tai chi, square dancing, walking and so on. You should never do overly intense exercise, such as playing basketball, or it is easy to hurt the health of the bones.
Appropriate exercise can also help the elderly control their own body weight, preventing overweight to the lower limbs of the bones to bring a huge burden, resulting in serious damage.
It is recommended that the elderly can do more aerobic exercise, exercise about half an hour a day, at least three days a week to exercise.
2, the elderly in the diet should pay attention to eat less greasy, high salt, high sugar food
high salt food will not only increase the risk of high blood pressure, but also make the body of the loss of calcium accelerated , increase the risk of osteoporosis, the health of the bones.
High-sugar foods also accelerate the loss of calcium, but also cause an imbalance in the metabolism of the bone, these need to pay special attention to the elderly.
All in all, the elderly diet should be nutritionally balanced, not biased, not picky, not to mention overeating. If you have a heavy taste, it is easy to hurt your health.
3, the old man fracture, most of the external factors
Compared with young people, the old man is not very nimble, action is relatively slow, the possibility of falling more injured.
In order to avoid falls, the elderly activities of the area of the goods to be placed in an orderly manner, can not be placed to affect the activities of the elderly things; the ground can not be too smooth , the elderly wear shoes must ensure that comfortable non-slip. The old man's common things must be placed in the old man's reach can get place.
The elderly are susceptible to osteoporosis, which can lead to falls and a high risk of fracture. Elderly people should pay attention to timely supplementation of calcium and the right amount of vitamin D, which is crucial for protecting bones and preventing fractures.
In addition to taking nutritional supplements, seniors should avoid risk factors that can cause bone damage. And more outdoor exercise to improve their physical fitness, enhance the toughness of the bones, prevent the occurrence of osteoporosis, so that the elderly easy to fall, but also to avoid the risk of fracture.