An old man in the park "hangs" himself on the horizontal bar. Is it to treat cervical spondylosis?

Audit expert: Wang Linjue

Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

When you are curled up on the sofa watching TV series or working hard, do you feel stiff and sore shoulders and neck? This is a warning signal from the body, and you need to protect your cervical spine.

The prevalence of cervical spondylosis in my country is 3.8%-17.6%, which is relatively common among the population. And as people become more dependent on mobile phones, "head-down tribe" and "mobile phone party" can be seen everywhere, and the incidence of cervical spondylosis among teenagers is gradually increasing.

Source: Tuchong Creative

The dangers of "hanging your neck"

In order to relieve cervical spondylosis, many middle-aged and elderly people have begun to seek folk remedies and secret recipes. As the saying goes, "there are many experts among the people". There are often many fitness experts hidden in major parks. Not only are they physically strong, but their self-created fitness methods are also eye-opening, such as "butting heads against trees" and "hanging on horizontal bars". For cervical spondylosis, they came up with the "hanging neck" exercise method.

All they need is a rope, a cloth pad and a supporting object, and the old men and women can dance with their heads hanging on the "beam". Seeing this effort, you can't help but feel a dull pain in your neck!

Is this kind of fitness really effective? It cannot be said that it is completely unreasonable. It imitates the "traction" treatment in the hospital - the external force generated by instruments and electric devices acts on the human cervical spine, causing a certain separation of the joint surface and proper stretching of the soft tissue around the joint.

Cervical traction can promote muscle injury recovery, reduce intervertebral disc pressure load, improve spinal curvature, etc., and has a certain effect on the treatment of cervical spondylosis. However, this treatment method may not be suitable for all cervical patients, nor is it as simple as it seems. It must be carried out under the guidance of hospital professionals to be effective.

If you hang your neck by yourself like the elderly, improper operation will aggravate the condition, causing muscle and ligament damage, mandibular joint pain, and may also cause nervous system inflammation. If the swing amplitude is too large or the angle is not appropriate, the brain may not be supplied with enough blood, resulting in symptoms such as headache, difficulty breathing, dizziness, nausea, and weakness in the limbs. What's more, it may induce cranial nerve or lumbar nerve damage.

Source: Tuchong Creative

How to do traction

So, what should we pay attention to when towing?

Common traction methods include supine and sitting. Considering the different conditions of patients, we need to set different traction forces, angles, times, etc. to achieve better therapeutic effects.

First of all, we need to understand a concept: effective traction weight, that is, the traction force that truly has therapeutic effect.

If sitting traction is used, the weight of the head needs to be considered (the weight of the head accounts for about 7% of the body weight of an adult). Therefore, the effective traction weight = traction weight - head weight. You can make an estimate based on this formula. If supine traction is used, no conversion is required.

Data source: Paper "Expert Consensus on Traction Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis"

It is very important to choose the appropriate traction force. If it is not well controlled, it may cause fractures and dislocations, which may be life-threatening. It is best to use a smaller weight first and then gradually increase it after you get used to it.

Second, the traction angle.

The traction angles include flexion, neutral and extension, that is, the traction rope is located in front of the head, directly above and above the head, among which flexion is the most common. In treatment, the cervical segment with lesions is usually found based on imaging data, and then the position and angle of traction are determined.

How to choose the initial traction angle correctly?

Data source: Thesis "Clinical study on continuous and intermittent traction for the treatment of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy"

With ensuring safety as the primary principle, fatigue damage to muscles and ligaments or nerve damage is minimized, while symptoms can be effectively relieved; then the most comfortable traction angle is found through debugging.

Finally, we need to consider the traction time, which mainly includes continuous traction and intermittent traction. The characteristic of continuous traction is "long time and small weight", which usually lasts for 6~8h or even 24h a day, and you can rest for 10~15min every 1~2h of traction. Indirect traction lasts for 15~30min each time, 1~2 times a day, and can be maintained for 2~4 weeks, or the period can be extended according to the recovery situation.

How to protect the cervical spine

1. Develop a good sleeping posture

The normal cervical spine is in a "C" shape when viewed from the side. We want the cervical spine to maintain this curvature so that the user can relax and rest in the most natural state.

The first is the choice of sleeping position, lying flat or lying on the side? Bend your legs or stretch them straight? Lying on your back and lying on your right side are the most suitable sleeping positions - they maintain the physiological curvature of the spine, relax the neck muscles to the greatest extent, and minimize the deformation of the neck bones.

Putting a pillow between your legs or riding on a blanket can also help relieve back and shoulder pain when you wake up early. Because our hips are more prominent and our knees are smaller, if our knees are close together when we lie on our side, it will have an adverse effect on blood circulation.

Secondly, it is the choice of mattress. Have you ever had this experience that a bed that is too soft makes you uncomfortable to sleep on? This is because the bed is too soft and cannot maintain the curvature of the spine and cervical vertebrae, so a harder bed is more suitable. Finally, you also need a pillow of the right height. The function of the pillow is also to maintain the curvature of the cervical vertebrae. Generally, the back of the neck or the head should be placed on the pillow, so sleeping without a pillow is also a bad habit.

The pillows we see in costume dramas or museums are all very high. Can sleeping with a high pillow really make you "sleep soundly"? In fact, different sleeping positions have different requirements for pillow height. When lying on your back, the height of the pillow should be equal to the height of your fist; when lying on your side, the height of the pillow should be the same as the width of your shoulder.

2. Maintain a correct sitting posture

The bad news is that the most comfortable sitting postures such as "crossing legs" and "Ge You slouching" can actually cause a lot of damage to the spine and cervical spine. So how should we sit? The key is to keep the muscles of the cervical spine coordinated. A low neck, tilted head, torticollis, raised shoulders, and forward extension can easily lead to cervical spondylosis. Therefore, when sitting, keep your body upright, keep your calves, thighs and torso at right angles, and your upper arms and forearms. Keep your neck upright, between your shoulders, and avoid leaning forward.

Source: Tuchong Creative

For workers, it is easy to lower their heads and bend their necks forward when facing computers for a long time every day. The neck muscles and ligaments are pulled and strained. Over time, the cervical intervertebral disc will degenerate. We can use a lifting platform or adjust the height of the seat to keep our eyes level with the screen and avoid lowering our heads for a long time; standing and sitting alternately to work is also a good choice. In addition, we should also reduce bad habits such as lying in bed reading books and watching TV series.

3. Combine work and rest to strengthen shoulder and neck muscle training

Generally speaking, maintaining a sitting posture for more than 2 hours at a time is considered "long-term sitting", which will cause chronic strain. Therefore, "long-term sitting" is called the "chronic killer in the workplace."

Everyone should pay attention to the combination of work and rest. It is best to relax for about 5 minutes every hour and stretch your muscles appropriately. Some experts recommend doing a shoulder and neck "M" exercise every day - that is, the head moves up and down, up and down, left and right with the eyes. The whole set of movements is similar to completing the writing of a "M" character. Each movement is held for 3 to 5 seconds at the maximum amplitude, and repeated 6 to 8 times.

During the weekend, you can do some exercise to strengthen the toughness of your neck muscles. Flying kites, playing badminton, practicing yoga, and practicing Tai Chi are all suitable forms of exercise. If you encounter an old man or woman hanging his neck in the park in the future, please bravely tell them: You are doing it wrong. Safety first. Don't blindly use folk methods!

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