‘Move, Don’t Rest’ Orthopaedic surgeon reveals why modern lifestyles are causing early joint pain (Image AI Generated)
People expect a surgeon to talk about surgery on Doctor's Day. "Over thirty-odd years, Dr. Bharat S. Mody, Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon and Chairman, Welcare Hospital, had my share of big cases and close calls. But if you ask what I am proudest of, it is the operations I never had to perform. The patients who walked back out of my clinic with a few small changes to their day instead of a date for theatre."
The doctor said, a question I hear almost every morning in my OPD is, "Doctor, should I rest it for a few weeks?" And almost every morning I disappoint the asker, because my answer is usually no. Move. Carefully, sensibly, but move.
"When I began practising, the patients in my waiting room made obvious sense. Farmers, mill workers, men and women who had spent forty years doing punishing physical labour, whose knees and hips had simply worn out."
The waiting room looks quite different now. These days the doctor see engineers who haven't crossed thirty. Chartered accountants, schoolteachers, young mothers, college students with their earphones still in. They haven't fallen. Nobody hit them. They aren't hurt but yet their neck is stiff, the back aches by evening, and the shoulder won't rotate the way it used to. Their bodies are no different from their parents. However, their days entirely are.
Think about what an ordinary day has become. We sit through the commute, sit through one online meeting after the next, and by evening we have everything, dinner, groceries, medicines, delivered to the door, so there is no reason left to walk anywhere. Then we sit some more infront of screens 'to relax'. No doubt that we have become a productive country, but at the unfortunate cost of our joints.
"However, I have now started noticing a shift especially during the weekends and that is what gives me hope is that people are at least trying. I see young professionals who wake up early for a run, squeeze in a gym session before work or spend their mornings cycling. They're making an effort, and that's encouraging. The problem isn't a lack of intent but that the modern life doesn't leave enough room for movement beyond that one hour. But I also understand the reality they return to a desk, back-to-back meetings and long hours with little opportunity to move. It's not about blaming people for sitting too much. It's about recognising that our daily routines need more movement woven into them, not just reserved for an hour at the gym," Dr Bharat said.
There's an old belief that's ingrained in our mindset that pain means you must stop and lie down and completely rest. Sometimes, for a specific injury, that might be right. But for most people, too much rest only stiffens the joint, weakens the muscle, and drains away their nerve to move at all. By the time real pain shows up, the body has usually been clearing its throat for months. A little stiffness, a dull ache after a long day. The sort of thing we are all good at ignoring.
So even before if the doctor send them for an X-ray, he ask a simple question, How many hours a day do you sit? Their answer explains the picture better than the film does.
If three decades have taught me one thing worth passing on this Doctor's Day, it is this. The body holds up beautifully as long as you keep asking it to move, and it gives way the moment you stop. So don't wait for pain to remind you to get up.
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