Backache: the sign of the diligent housewife

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 5

Backache: the sign of the diligent housewife

(By

Patricia Lewis)

Out of every hundred husbands who come home from work to-, night, over 20 of them will be greeted by their wives with a look which roughly translated, means: “My back is killing me.”

If you are one of them, you can get some slight comfort from the fact that if you’re a backache victim, you more than likely belong to an elite hand of superhousewives whose domestic standards make the rest of us green with envy.

You do your housework too efficiently, and perhaps a little too frequently. You take advantage of bargain offers, which means carrying heavy groceries home, and you are romping with the children when you should be putting your feet up. You also probably help your husband in the garden. And what do you get for your pains? Further painsin the back. Indeed, backache among women has now become so serious that it has been estimated that in Britain alone some three million housework-days are lost each year by women forced to take things easy. CAUSES UNKNOWN

Exactly what causes those tiresome twinges is still a mystery in many cases, although specialists at the Welsh National School of Medicine consider that the moment we gave up Walking around on all fours, a few million years ago we were asking for trouble. The human back, they say, and particularly the female version, is not really designed for all the twisting and turning we are called on to do in our daily lives. And never is more twisting and turning done than when we are busy with our chores. A study of Italian housewives conducted last year bymedical scientists at the University of Turin, showed that the average busy wife, particularly if she had small children, stooped down 400 times a day. Is it any wonder that our vertebrae sometimes complain? Men in the most energetic jobs rarely stoop more than half that number of times. So it’s up to the housewife to protect her back, an orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Dillwyn Evans, said at a British Medical Association meeting recently. SAFETY TIPS A good way to start, he suggested, was to learn how to bend the knees in the course of cleaning the house in the same way that cricketers are taught to make ■ strokes with their knees bent. Bed-making—it is the stretching to straighten the bedclothes that can be such agony—preparing food over low tables, and cleaning floors and baths are the main culprits.

It always helps, says Mr Evans, if you make a point of bending from the knees instead of the back when polishing, dusting and moving things. Try to keep the back as stiff and as vertical as possible. That way you will stand a good chance of keeping those 23 discs in the spine firmly in place. Being over-weight can also be a major cause of backache. Humping around 101 b or 121 b of unwanted fat can impose the same kind of strain as walking home with the week’s groceries.

As a general rule, keep yourself fit and supple, and take regular exercise particularly the sort that strengthens the muscles which protect the vulnerable parts of the spine.

HELPFUL GADGETS For the wife who is prone to backache there are all manner of gadgets which can help to reduce bending to a minimum. For example, there is a stick with a grab on the end which will pick up anything from quite heavy objects to scraps of paper. It also has a magnetic tip for dropped pins and needles. Then there are mops with interchangeable heads for polishing, mopping and scrubbing, and dustpans with long handles to cut down

stooping when you are sweeping up. Nobody has yet invented anything to help you to clean the bath without stooping, but you can avoid too much bending by kneeling down to the job.

A friend of mine with back trouble has even abandoned her vacuum-cleaner in favour of a traditional carpetsweeper. She says it cuts out stooping for electric plugs and emptying the bag. In the kitchen, arrange your shelves so that ingredients in most common use are at the easiest level. Check that your kitchen table is the right height: most standard models are too low, and a common cause of backache.

Often from three to nine inches could be added to table legs to make an ideal working position. If you are over five feet and under six feet, you would probably benefit from a 3ft-high kitchen table.

Bring up those saucepans from their dungeon under the kitchen sink and put them where you need them—hanging from hooks from a pegboard near the cooker. A job like that, done in half-an-hour, will cut out several dozen “stoops” a day. FOOD PREPARATION And when you are preparing food, work with a small handled plastic bucket which you can carry around and empty into an outside bin after the meal is cooked. That will save you stooping constantly towards the kitchen waste-bin—always in some inaccessible place—while you are cooking. Of course, not all back trouble can be cured by these methods. A really drastic backache sometimes needs drastic treatment, such as staying in bed for several days. This does not mean snatching a rest when you can, but lying on a firm bed and not moving for any reason short of the house catching fire. To enable you to get the necessary complete rest, your doctor may insist on you being admitted to hospital, or may arrange for someone to look after you and the family at home.

Three days in bed, waited on hand and foot, does not sound much like medical treatment. More like heaven on earth. Perhaps I should put my back more into those household chores. Features International.