What causes elderly to hunch their backs?
In: 125
The cartilage discs in their spine aren’t maintained, detoriate, and then they have nothing for their vertebrae to “move” on so the whole spine collapses
Cartilage is funny packing material your body makes
Detoriate means goes away slowly, usually like how an eraser on a pencil goes away
Spine is what you have when you aren’t a politician /s
Two things:
1. They often have pain in their hips or knees and tend to bend over.
2. Kyphosis. It’s a rounding of the upper back and is common in older people. There are exercises to help with it, but it comes as a part of the aging process.
Source: Am elderly. 🙂
https://www.pennmedicine.org/for-patients-and-visitors/patient-information/conditions-treated-a-to-z/kyphosis
In adults, kyphosis can be caused by:
Degenerative diseases of the spine (such as arthritis or disk degeneration).
Fractures caused by osteoporosis (osteoporotic compression fractures).
Injury (trauma).
Slipping of one vertebra forward on another (spondylolisthesis).
Gravity and time. Spine is always gonna fail. If most of your life you go easy on your back and don’t carry much body fat you might die before it noticably curves. Most old people will have some sort of back problem at some point. The advisory of how to lift with legs and not your back ain’t a suggestion. You should consider it a command from your future self.
Also, the discs (spongey thingies) that help keep the spine (back bone) erect (boner-like) are not vascularized (they have no blood tubes).
They need movement (lots of back bends in all directions) to passively exchange oxygen and food with CO2 and waste (not die).
So, do lots of “cat / cow” and side bends every day to keep those discs healthy as long as possible, and that back hunch at bay!
My father is 86 and has been hunching over for the last couple of years. After he stopped chipping wood every winter and sat more, he’s become more cautious with his footing, so he’s always watching where he puts his feet. So he’s looking down more, and his chest is starting to cave in.
Edit: chopping
Everyone here is saying age and degeneration. I’ll give you another possibility to consider. Humans like to make things easier for themselves. All of our inventions tend to take the challenge out of life.
To maintain muscles you have to use them. If the predominate action in your life is to push, sit, look down then you barely utilize any muscles in the back of your body. If you don’t maintain tone in the muscles that support your spine then you start to curve. Once you start curving your body tries maintain equilibrium by pushing your hips forward to counter the weight. This is why some older people look like a question mark.
You have to constantly challenge your body and muscles. Older people should place objects higher up to maintain a more dynamic Range of Motion. Move as much as possible and vary their exercise routines. There’s so much more to be said but I would have to write a book.
My background is massage therapy, yoga and personal training for the last 18 years.
Actual physical therapist here. First answer Is Posture. If you slouch your body gets used to slouching. After years it’s a icy slope and a little slouch mixed with years of gravity create an inability to stand up straight.
They weight of decades of bad political choices….don’t worry you’ll probably end up that way too.
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