Reducing Your Risk of Spinal Compression Fractures
Decreasing your risk of spinal compression fractures often begins with reducing your overall risk of low bone density. By engaging in tactics to preserve and build healthy bones, you can reduce the likelihood of injuries in the future.
Eat a Bone-Healthy Diet
Regardless of your age, eating a diet that helps promote healthy bones is important. Women should take a daily multivitamin, even if they eat a healthy diet. Since women are at higher risk for low bone density, taking a multivitamin can make it easier to consume adequate nutrients. In addition to gaining nutrients through supplements, calcium, vitamin D, and trace minerals should be rich in your diet. Fortunately, many commercially prepared foods, such as juice, bread, and cereal are fortified with additional nutrients to make it easier to gain adequate nutrients through food sources. Incorporating leafy greens, such as spinach and kale into your diet can also help. Since leafy greens are versatile and many do not have a strong flavor, you can find ways to add them to smoothies, soup, sandwiches, and salads.
Exercise
Keeping a regular exercise regimen is essential to increasing and maintaining bone density. High intensity aerobics, jogging, and weightlifting are good choices if you are physical able to engage in these forms of exercises. If you experience physical limitations and find vigorous exercise is not an option, focus on exercises designed to improve functional fitness. Walking and swimming remain a good, low-impact option to help improve bone density while increasing daily physical functioning. To help build strength, resistance bands or even using household items as weights can work. For example, put a few cans of soup in a reusable grocery bag and use them to do bicep curls or while doing chair squats. If you can only lift a few pounds, do more repetitions of the exercise to compensate for using lighter weights.
Consider Bone Density
You should discuss with your doctor at which age you should have a bone density scan. Typically, your risk for spinal compression fractures are tied into your risk for osteoporosis. If you are post-menopausal, you are at an increased risk for decreased bone density. Even if you are pre-menopausal or a man, you may have other risk factors that can cause loss of bone density. For example, chronic musculoskeletal conditions and long-term use of steroids can have adverse effects on bone density and lifestyle choice alone may not improve the problem.
Everyone should engage in lifestyle choices to protect their bones, especially women who are often at higher risk for spinal compression fractures. A combination of lifestyle choices and individual risk assessment can keep your bone strong. For more tips on preventing spinal compression fractures, check out http://swfna.com.