Although the popularity of jogging is on the rise, an orthopedist at Chung Shan Hospital yesterday said that strenuous exercise, as well as frequent kneeling or carrying heavy objects, can increase the likeliness of developing knee degeneration (knee osteoarthritis) at an earlier age.
About five years ago, a 55-year-old woman who owns a grocery shop, often carrying heavy loads of grocery items and climbing a ladder to arrange goods, began suffering from serious knee pain and had difficulty walking or squatting.
She was diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis and began receiving hyaluronic acid joint injections as treatment, but found that the injections could only brought temporary relief and that her knee condition did not improve. Last year, she decided to undergo a minimally invasive robotic-arm-guided unicompartmental knee arthroplasty and regained the ability to walk normally.
Wu Jiunn-jer (吳濬哲), an orthopedist at Chung Shan Hospital who performed the surgery, said people move their knees about 3,000 times per day, while walking, kneeling or squatting, so they gradually degenerate.
According to clinical observations, the prevalence of knee osteoarthritis in people in their 50s is about 30 percent, and 60 percent in people in their 60s, Wu said, adding that the likeliness of women developing knee osteoarthritis is about two times that of men, because the innate structure of the pelvis and legs are different, and women tend to do more house chorus, as well as squatting when using the toilet.
People who have a body mass index of more than 25, or have bowlegs are also more likely to damage their knee joints or develop knee osteoarthritis, Wu said.
He said that people are developing knee osteoarthritis at increasingly younger ages, so it is important people do not place extra stress on their knees from doing strenuous exercise and consult a doctor as soon as possible if they experience pain in their knees.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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