An ounce of prevention...

Many of you have seen the recent series of commercials that @IBM has been airing about how #watson and their analytics can predict when equipment is about to fail and how preventive care can keep machines from failure. Without proper maintenance systems fail. The same theory holds true to our bodies and their various components. It is widely known that smoking damages your lungs, heavy drinking damages your liver, high sugar diets lead to diabetes, and so on. One area that receives little attention for prevention is physical functioning.

Physical functioning includes many activities that we all do on a regular basis including activities as simple as walking and stair climbing, to higher level activities such as biking, swimming, or various sports. The typically accepted way to deal with limitations in physical functioning is to rest or go see the doctor to get a pill or brace. Unfortunately, these activities usually only mask the greater problem which is what we've termed 'substitution patterns'.

If someone hurts their back, or knee, or shoulder, they will usually go to the doctor and are told to "rest until it feels better" and/or "take this pill for the pain". Both of these strategies do often work for eliminating or decreasing the pain at the time, but most of the time the individual will develop some type of substitution pattern to also help deal with the pain. Often this is not noticeable to the person as the change may be very subtle. This substitution pattern may work for days, weeks, months, or even years, but inevitably the same pain will return or another symptom may arise elsewhere in the body from chronic substitution. When the problem reoccurs, often the substitution pattern worsens. This can eventually lead to structural failure such as disc herniations, torn ligaments, or arthritis, due to chronic substitution patterns.

So how can we prevent these progressive system failures that arise from substitution patterns? As mentioned before, rest and medications are a good way to deal with the pain, but to prevent the pain from returning and to make sure the rest of the body doesn't compensate we need to physically rehab the area affected. There are many programs in place that can identify areas of weakness, inflexibility, and 'substitution patterns'. By identifying these areas and correcting them early on we can help make sure that when someone has lost physical functioning they can regain normal movement patterns and thus prevent further problems later on.

Individuals with #kidneydisease lose physical functioning and are at high risk for developing substitution patterns that can further complicate their care. #renalrehab is a program developed to test the physical limitations and substitution patterns of individuals with #kidneydisease and help restore them to the highest level of physical function they can achieve.

#exercise #kidneydisease #nkf #kidneyfund #renalrehab