There are so many excellent reasons to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. When combined with balanced nutrition an active lifestyle can decrease your risk of illness, lower your risk of disease and just help you look great and feel great every day. Maintaining an active lifestyle not only boosts your energy and immune systems, but it helps maintain your bone density while increasing your life span. Staying active becomes more of a challenge in adulthood, but the best way to keep the blood flowing and the activity meter high is to stay involved in a sport or activity that you are passionate about.
One big downer for the active lifestyle is an injury, especially a sports injury. Most common sports injuries are going to require the right attention to heal properly. Ignoring injuries can lead to more serious problems that could require surgery or create the inability to be active if left uncared for. Braces and splints are extremely useful for muscular injuries and injuries involving tendons which are common to sports and an active lifestyle. Additionally, the use of braces and splints can help to prevent further damage to the affected injury while allowing a person to continue to be active.
In the active lifestyle, the knees take on some serious pressure to perform. The knee is the largest joint in the body and its position makes it extra vulnerable to sports injuries. Methods of preventing and caring for sport related injuries of the knee have changed with the development of great knee braces. Functional knee braces are designed to stabilize the knee during activity. Knee braces are both preventative and therapeutic for knee injury management in that they can prevent new injury, provide support to already injured knees and limit the movement of the knee during healing.
Depending on how the sports injury has affected the knee, there are different braces available to help with healing. A quality sports hinged knee brace with patella stabilizers can be very helpful for anterior knee pain associated with active people. The low cost, ease of use and availability of the hinged knee brace with patella stabilizers make it a widely used choice for sports injuries. If you are looking for support that does not affect mobility as much as a brace with patella stabilizers, but has the same low cost and availability, then an adjustable knee brace with lateral supports may be all you need. While there is still patella support in this type of knee brace, it is slightly more flexible than the hinged brace.
Our knees are not the only joints affected by sports injuries. Injuries to the wrist occur most often in cases of overuse where the wrist has been under repeated strain. This is true in many sports from tennis to bowling. Often referred to as repetitive strain injuries, wrist injuries can cause serious problems beyond the active sports lifestyle and proper care and treatment is a must. Splints are an effective way to limit movement and provide support to wrists weakened by injury.
Most wrist splints are made from simple neoprene that supplies both warmth and compression to healing joints while providing mild support for the wrist injury. A thumb and wrist splint also provides support to the thumb. Most wrist splints and thumb and wrist splints contain metal or plastic splints to prevent flexion, but in some braces these can be removed to adjust the restriction as condition of the wrist improves. Compression and support for sports injuries to the wrist can also be adjusted on most splints with Velcro fastenings.
Maintaining an active lifestyle is the key to good health and sports injuries can put a big damper on an active way of life. If you are suffering from a sports injury, consider braces and splints to stay active while letting the healing process begin.
