Medical Information

Explore detailed information about a range of joint problems and treatments, including medications, surgery, physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Reading this will help you understand more about your own condition. There is also a glossary with explanations of many medical terms used in orthopaedics. You can find out even more by following the links page to other related websites, journals or professional medical associations.

Hover over links below to view summary or click on the link to view full article:

Gardening and Arthritis

Author: DAVID P JOHNSON MB ChB FRCS FRCS. MD
Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon

Summary
Looking after your garden can be a problem if you have arthritis or rheumatism. Whether your whole body is affected or just one joint, you may find bending difficult or that you cannot get around too well or just suffer from general pain and stiffness.

This booklet shows how you can carry on gardening, whether you have a painful hip, swollen fingers and wrists, or a number of damaged joints. You will find ways to protect yourself from unnecessary strain by careful planning.

Pain in the joints and weakness of the muscles make it difficult to garden in the conventional way, but there are a number of means to overcome these hindrances. You can use different gardening methods, change the layout of paths and beds, select plants carefully and choose the right tools. It is important to use lightweight implements or ones which have extended handles. There is a wide variety of garden tools designed to make cultivation, weeding, pruning and tidying up easier. It may be important to handle tools before buying, so that you can test them for lightness and balance. If possible, try them out on the soil to make sure they feel right and that you can manage them properly.

Because arthritis comes in many forms, and varies in severity and extent, all the suggestions offered cannot be appropriate for everyone. A gardener whose stiff knee gives minor discomfort when they are digging will change his/her techniques to place less strain on the knee. Someone with widespread arthritis, however, may have to work from a wheelchair or a stool. One has to accept much greater limitations than the other – yet both can enjoy gardening to the full. On some days you feel much better than on others and this affects your attitude to gardening as well as to everything else.

Protecting your joints
Gardening provides plenty of opportunities for healthy exercise in the fresh air and in pleasant surroundings, but overdoing things leads to inflammation, swelling and pain, making it necessary to rest completely until the flare-up subsides. The aim is to stay mobile and independent by gently exercising arthritic joints without subjecting them to too much stress. The amount of exercise will vary from one person to another. A general guideline is ‘a little and often’. Prolonged activity of a repetitive nature is not a good idea. Your own experience will tell you how to get the balance right.

By changing jobs frequently you can exercise different sets of muscles. For example, a short spell of hoeing weeds on the vegetable plot should be followed by something gentler like pricking out seedlings while sitting at a bench in the greenhouse. It is tempting to carry on with one job until it is completed, but it is sensible to switch from one to another with rest periods in-between.

Link : http://www.arc.org.uk/arthinfo/patpubs/6014/6014.asp

Editor: David P Johnson MD.
St Mary’s Hospital. Clifton Bristol. BS8 1JU.
Web site: www.orthopaedics.co.uk
boc@orthopaedics.co.uk
© OrthopaedicsOpinionOnline 2011 www.OrthopaedicOpinionOnline.co.uk
Full text pdf

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of Orthopaedic Opinion Online or the author. The information is provided for general background reading only and should not be relied upon for treatment. Advice should always be taken from a registered medical practitioner for individual circumstances and for treatment of any patient in any circumstances. No liability is accepted by Orthopaedic Opinion Online, or the author in respect to the information provided in respect of the content or omission or for any reason or as a result of treatment in individual circumstances. This information is not for use in the USA