7 Tips for Knee Care As You Age

Older adults are prone to knee problems, which can have a negative impact on joint function and health. Therefore, it is important to pay more attention to the maintenance of the knee joint when you enter old age to avoid inconvenience to your movement.

How to take care of your knees?

1. Healthy Diet
   Most middle-aged and elderly people have knee problems, often related to the lack of calcium in the body. In daily life, you can eat more foods that contain calcium and protein, such as milk, soy, eggs, fish and shrimp. When the calcium content in the body is not sufficient, it may lead to osteoporosis and patients need to go to the hospital for treatment.
   On the other hand, elderly people should usually pay more attention to vitamin supplementation in their diet and eat more foods containing vitamins as well as phosphorus, such as carrots, oranges and cheese.

2. Weight Control
   It is more common for older people to gain weight. Obesity and knee pain are closely related. It is a critical and important aspect for every middle-aged and older person who wants to protect the health of their knee joints to control their weight as well as possible.
   Being overweight is not only bad for your health, but it can also put a burden on your knee joints, which can be detrimental to them.

3. Proper Exercises
   Reasonable exercise is good for strengthening the ligaments and muscles around the knee joint. It is important to note that it is important to warm up before exercising to avoid adding too much burden and pressure to the knee joint due to improper force, which can cause damage to it.
   However, it is less recommended to choose exercises that are more demanding on the knees such as jumping rope, climbing stairs and squatting. Improper exercise can lead to damage to the meniscus and cruciate ligaments, collateral ligaments, and synovial bursae.

4. Keep Warm
   It is also important to keep your knee joints warm and to avoid being in wet and cold environments. In colder seasons, the pressure on the knee joint can be greater. Wearing knee pads, for example, can prevent repetitive damage to the knee area.

5. Use the Help of External Force
   Most squatting movements require the knee joint to exert force. Because the bones of the elderly are relatively fragile, if the pressure is too much, the knee joint will be overburdened. Therefore, it is necessary to use external force as much as possible in the process of squatting, which is also one of the most effective means to protect the knee joint.
   In daily life, you can stand up with the help of quality lift chairs, which can reduce the damage to the knees.

6. Shoes
   The fit of the shoe will directly affect the knee joint force when walking. Only by choosing shoes that are more ergonomic can you better protect your knees and legs.

7. Disease Prevention
   For elderly people with knee problems, it is more important to pay attention to joint protection, otherwise, the situation will worsen and cause greater impact. In more serious cases, surgery or medication should be promptly administered.

Learn basic health knowledge and common knee issues in your spare time. This is not to make you a doctor, but to increase your knowledge of your body.

Whether you have knee problems or not, it is important to prevent them before they occur to better ensure the health of the knee joint and to avoid any adverse effects on the knee joint that may affect its function or cause pain and other symptoms.