Full Transcript Intro and podcast welcome 0:00 Many of us spend most of the day in a sitting position, either reading, watching TV, driving, working on our computers or our ubiquitous cell phones. 0:11 And this has been deemed responsible for a condition called tech neck, which I am guilty and a victim of tech-neck. 0:21 which is that we spend too much of our time in a abnormal position that were not intended to be in. 0:29 And positioning oneself more properly if you are sitting in front of a computer or reading with proper support can both prevent and treat this condition 0:40 if we've already experienced it. 0:43 Have you made it past menopause, or are you going through it now? 0:46 I'm Dr. 0:47 Pat McShane, and on the Women's Health Span Voices podcast, I'll guide you through the health challenges of the menoppausal years and beyond, 0:56 guiding the way to thriving in this powerful era of your womanhood. 1:00 Hello and welcome. 1:02 I'm Dr. 1:02 Pat McShane and this is Women's HealthSpan Voices. 1:06 We talk a lot on this podcast about the difference between health span and life span, but we don't explicitly talk so much about disability,
Understanding disability in women 1:17 which is the condition between the time that we are healthy, having our health span, and the times that actually pass, that die. 1:28 And I thought we could talk a little bit more in depth about this today. 1:33 I suspect, like me, many of you have had situations with temporary disability, let's say after a fracture or surgery or a fairly severe illness that put 1:46 you down for the count for a certain length of time. 1:48 And it's not something that we seek. 1:51 We are happy when we get through it. 1:54 But in fact, many of us don't get though it, and by the time we hit 65, it is estimated that almost half of women, about 45%, will be suffering from some 2:07 form of disability. 2:09 Obviously, disability is something that makes us more likely to experience loss of independence, and that may mean being taken care of by another person 2:22 in our own home or in a nursing home, or assisted living facility. 2:27 I recently saw a disturbing study that noted that the life expectancy in this was in the US had grown between 1990 and 2023. And the live expectancy for women, 2:41 American women had gone from 65 to about 74. But the time that people spent in good health had only gone up by seven years during that time. 3:01 So we, in fact, are experiencing longer times of disability. 3:07 The study I just cited, as well as prior observations, note that women are more likely to spend more of their later years in a disabled condition. 3:19 and this is called the mortality morbidity paradox. 3:25 In other words, we live longer but not as healthy as men.
Osteoarthritis prevention and joint health 3:29 And there's probably several reasons for that. 3:32 One is that women tend to start their later years with less muscle mass. 3:39 And of course, during our entire lifetime, we have less muscles mass than men because of our hormones and often because our type of work that we engage 3:50 in and other kinds of leisure time activities. 3:54 So we start at a lower baseline with both muscle and bone than our male contemporaries. 4:02 And when we go through menopause, the lack of estrogen and testosterone causes us to lose muscle, and bones more rapidly than men. 4:13 These situations are probably the basis for a lot of our loss of muscle and our lost of ability and independence. 4:24 The causes of disability in women have been tracked by a number of different public health agencies. 4:32 And the main three are musculoskeletal issues, cardiovascular issues including stroke, and neurological conditions. 4:42 So I thought today we would go through some of the preventable issues here, because some this of course is not preventible, 4:51 but much of it turns out that it is preventble. 4:55 And we'll break down a couple of these topics, especially the ones that we haven't covered so much in these podcasts before, 5:03 namely osteoarthritis and back and neck problems. 5:08 Let's start with osteoarthritis, which is considered wear and tear arthritis. 5:14 It's not an autoimmune disease per se, such as rheumatoid arthritis or the other kinds of arthritis that women are particularly likely to suffer from, 5:26 especially earlier in their life. 5:28 But it's the kind of thing that impacts on our knees and our hips and low back and small joints in our hands, et cetera. 5:37 So wear and tear is a pretty good description of this. 5:40 And one of the issues that predisposes people to a higher chance of osteoarthritis is overweight or obesity, of course, especially in the weight bearing joints, 5:52 our hips and our knees. 5:54 So weight maintenance is something that we can do to try to prevent this situation as best as we A good diet is another way to prevent this avoidance of 6:07 smoking and staying active. 6:09 When we do some activity, it's good to warm up a little bit and cool down a bit. 6:15 Stretching can be helpful as well. 6:18 In doing some of my research, I came across recommendations to make sure that we have good footwear and are wearing good protective gear when it is an
Back, neck, and tech neck care 6:29 activity that involves something like a helmet or wrist guards, etc. 6:34 In my series, there was a recent podcast about the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. 6:41 And that's the condition where upon losing our estrogen, we seem to have an onset of a bunch of different musculo skeletal conditions such as shoulder, 6:52 frozen shoulder or shoulder arthritis. 6:56 This is something that may be addressed with hormone replacement with your physician. 7:02 I didn't find this recommendation anywhere in my research but my personal recommendation is that if you're starting a new kind of activity that you might 7:12 take lessons or get a coach because at certainly my age I don't wish to do an intentional or an avoidable injury that could have been avoided with good coaching. 7:23 Another recommendation is to seek counsel besides your physicians with a physical therapist because they can often give you balancing muscles to try to 7:37 avoid pain or disability that you may experience. 7:40 Moving on to another musculoskeletal condition, which is low back and neck pain, spine issues, the recommendations here are very similar to avoid osteoarthritis 7:54 with a few different specific recommendations. 7:58 Many of us spend most of the day in a sitting position, either reading, watching TV, driving, working on our computers or our ubiquitous cell phones. 8:10 And this has been deemed responsible for a condition called tech neck, which I am guilty and a victim of tech-neck. 8:20 which is that we spend too much of our time in a abnormal position that were not intended to be in. 8:28 And positioning oneself more properly if you are sitting in front of a computer or reading with proper support can both prevent and treat this condition 8:38 if have already experienced it. 8:41 So that's one specific recommendation for back and neck and spine issues. 8:47 The corollary of that is avoid prolonged sitting, standing in particular. 8:53 Many of us carry bags over our shoulder, often just one shoulder. 8:59 And that's inadvisable because we're not quite properly aligned with that position. 9:05 Same thing with backpacks, carrying them too low, carry them higher up and your back will be grateful to you.
Bone density, falls, and sensory health 9:13 I imagine most of you who have experienced neck or back pain have tried heat or cold ice is often very, very helpful. 9:23 A firm mattress is another recommendation that I found online. 9:28 And just getting enough good sleep in general is very important. 9:32 Pillows may help for neck problems. 9:35 One of my favorite recommendations that I found was to get a massage, which I do on a frequent basis. 9:41 And again, see a physical therapist. 9:44 This can make a huge difference because often we have evolved an imbalance of our muscles over the many years that the neck or back pain has been coming 9:55 on to us. 9:57 A little bit of rebalancing with specific exercises and postures can Another major piece of avoidance of musculoskeletal injuries is making sure that your 10:12 bone density is as good as it can be. 10:15 And I hope to have a podcast very soon from an expert on bone-density maintenance. 10:22 But this, of course, is very, very prevalent in older women and, again, may be a reason to consider hormone replacement therapy, 10:31 especially in the early perimenopausal years. 10:35 so osteoporosis is responsible for major falls and major fractures and shortening of our stature and often leads to severe and profound disability. 10:49 Some recent podcasts that I have put out include avoidance of falls, and of course falling not due to osteo porosis per se but environmental or other kinds 11:04 of physical issues is very, very common and often leads to profound injuries that may be life threatening or certainly disabling. 11:14 Similarly, avoiding diabetes because diabetes is often followed by neuropathy or loss of nerve sensation in your lower extremities and this can lead to 11:29 falls and other kinds of disabilities. 11:31 Hearing is something that I talked about in a recent podcast and lack of good hearing support has been linked with increased risk of falls, 11:42 and that's something Same thing for vision. 11:49 And sometimes our visual problems are unavoidable and not preventable, but often they are. 11:56 If we get in to see an ophthalmologist or an optometrist early on, we can identify and often reverse visual loss, which then makes us less likely to suffer 12:10 falls and to just be disabled regarding nighttime driving and other things for which we need good vision.
Heart, brain, and mental health protection 12:17 One of our usual suspects is sleep, and I recently had a marvelous guest on a podcast to go through all the basic approach to getting good sleep. 12:29 And of course, if you're tired and fatigued and your balance isn't quite right from lack of sleep that could cause musculoskeletal injuries as well. 12:40 Let's briefly talk about cardiovascular disease. 12:43 And in, again, previous podcasts, we've talked about Life's Essential Eight, which are the recommendations made by the American Heart Association to help 12:55 us to stay as healthy as possible. 12:57 And again, it's estimated that a huge percentage of cardiovascular illnesses, including stroke, are avoidable if we're doing the kinds of things that I 13:08 just mentioned, as far as a healthy lifestyle, avoiding smoking, good diet, weight maintenance. 13:14 We didn't mention alcohol, but that's on the list as well. 13:17 And then avoidance of diabetes, treating blood pressure problems, and sleep. 13:23 I might have left one off the list there, but they're the kinds of things that we talk about all the time on these podcasts. 13:29 So again, the way to avoid cardiovascular disease as much as possible is to stay tuned in with your primary care practitioners and do the things you can 13:42 do on your own to keep your health as good as And that turns out to cross over into the neuroprotection sphere as well, because we often think of dementia, 13:54 which is one of the major causes of disability, as type 3 diabetes. 14:00 And again, the metabolic and cardiovascular issues that affect our heart and may cause stroke are similar to the things that may caused dementia. 14:12 So those are some final recommendations. 14:16 Another issue that is showing up on the list from the World Health Organization and other American public health organizations is anxiety and depression. 14:27 And that usually makes the top 10 list of disability causing conditions for women in the developed world as well as other parts of the world. 14:37 So getting evaluated and treated for these conditions is something that I would highly recommend. 14:44 And one thing that, again, doesn't show up on most of the material that study before I make these podcasts, but that i've seen in other places, 14:55 is being out in nature. 14:57 That can be very, very therapeutic for a lot of people. 15:02 Especially morning sunshine, if humanly possible. 15:07 And one final thing is our social life. 15:10 And I know we've talked in prior podcasts about loneliness and social isolation. 15:17 It turns out these conditions, feeling lonely and being socially isolated, are as high of a risk factor as smoking for cardiovascular disease,
Social connection and closing remarks 15:28 for example. 15:28 Probably others as well, although they're not as So maintaining your social relationships and being out there doing things that are meaningful. 15:39 This is how we can live out our health span as long as possible and have it meet up with our lifespan. 15:47 And to quote a quote that I often use, to die young as late as possibly. 15:53 So I hope this is helpful information for you and thanks for being with us and I hoped to see you again soon. 16:01 Thanks. 16:02 Thanks for listening to the Women's Health Span Voices podcast. 16:06 If today's episode spoke to you, follow the show and share it with a friend ready to take charge of her health. 16:13 And please leave a review. 16:15 It helps more women find us.
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