Dr. Asaad Al-Mutawa, a consultant spine surgeon, director of Al-Mustaqbal Hospital in Jeddah, attacked the lifestyle of Saudi women, being the main cause of osteoporosis and its spread even among young girls, making the name "Fragile Century" appropriate for life now, and he called in a dialogue with "Middle East" “The office staff should move during each period after their long sitting while at work to move muscles and facilitate blood flow, advising them to adopt healthy sitting positions using comfortable seats for the spine.> Osteoporosis has spread recently, so what is the disease?
Osteoporosis and what are its causes?
Osteoporosis is a global disease, and Saudi Arabia is among the countries where there is a high incidence of this disease, and there are causes for the disease, including advanced age, that is, beyond the 45 years and menopause, and the daily lifestyle of lack of movement, lack of exercise, and calcium deficiency, The increase in drinking soft drinks and the lack of rehabilitation of children, and this century is called by scholars the "century of fragility", worldwide, which made the United Nations and Saudi Arabia - as well - take the matter seriously. I believe that awareness is the basis and then the treatment.
So how can this phenomenon be treated?
Firstly, the lifestyle must be modified, especially for women. Imagine that when a woman is exposed to the sun, she wears a black cloak and switches between her and the rays, and finds that her food is unhealthy, does not exercise, prolonged sitting in front of the TV, and she is never exposed to the sun, so it is an environment Fully conducive to infection, it must have osteoporosis, and the most dangerous of all is that young girls are becoming infected with this fatal disease, which was not the case in the past. Surgical, but we do not prefer it for women who are over sixty or seventy years old, because the bone is light and does not withstand the operation, so the risk is high except in certain cases, forcing us to do so, otherwise, painkillers and physical therapy.
What about sports injuries, and to what extent can Saudi cadres be considered capable of treating them?
Saudi medical personnel are able to provide a distinct therapeutic environment for stadium injuries, and athletes increase among them at a high rate, and most patients complain of injuries in the middle and lateral meniscal cartilage, with the anterior cruciate ligament being cut, and endoscopic operations are performed to remove the tear in the meniscus, with fixation of the ligament Al-Sulaibi implanted tissues without using the bone with modern fixations that dissolve in the bone, and the causes of these injuries are due to multiple factors, including poor fitness for some players, and injury resulting from dangerous frictions in matches, and sometimes the injury is caused by the player himself when he makes some incorrect movements. Or cruel. I note here that we have conducted many rare operations for a number of local and Arab players, and they are now performing their duties in the green fields.
As a specialist in spine surgery, what are the most difficult, and rare operations you have had so far?
I underwent surgery on a 17-year-old girl, who was suffering from a scoliosis in the spine by 95 degrees, and the spine was modified and stabilized so that the curvature became 10 degrees, and she is now practicing her life normally · And another case that she suffered fractures in the fifth cervical vertebra due to a fall from The second round, the patient was 45 years old, and he suffered quadriplegic paralysis in the limbs, and the vertebra was completely removed and we put an artificial vertebra in place with fixation in the front · Many critical operations I performed in this area.
The spine is one of the basic organs in the human body, and its injury is a major danger. What is the percentage of error in spinal operations?
The error in any percentage leads to complete paralysis, and the doctor must take into account the measurements, the spinal cord, or the nerve, and these are complex operations, and in the Kingdom there are few doctors who perform such operations, and during the past year we have performed more than 100 operations for people from inside and outside Saudi Arabia Most of them are women.
What do you recommend office workers?
I advise office workers that they should move for at least five minutes after sitting for an hour while at work, and this is necessary to move muscles and facilitate blood flow movement, and I also recommend adopting healthy sitting positions using comfortable seats for the spine.
The highest percentage of pressure on the cartilage for a person when he is in a sitting position more than walking and lying down, etc. We recommend a healthy session, healthy sleep and exercise. Long sitting is a danger to the cartilage. A long stance is not problematic because the human weight is distributed over the body completely, but sitting makes the weight concentrated on the bottom. Back mainly.
Every effort and weight of a person falls on the legs, "your health is from your feet" and this is something that people do not pay much attention to. When the man is in an abnormal position or the shoes are abnormal, an incorrect distribution of human weight occurs, which leads to roughness of the knees and pelvis, so I recommend medical shoes. I think that the high price of the medical shoe is a problem because people do not buy it despite its fundamental importance. * But the safety of the foot is from the safety of the body, and the old doctors were focusing on the health of the foot through the health of the shoe.
What is the benefit of cooperating with foreign medical sectors?
Medicine is a changing and not fixed process, and every day modern tools and new medicines appear. A doctor who does not attend workshops and continues to develop loses a lot to develop himself medically, on the personal level, be sure to attend between five to seven conferences every year around the world, and there are many Among the conferences held in Saudi Arabia, whether in Riyadh or Jeddah, and this is an essential process for developing doctor''s skills.
What about qualifying Saudi doctors in the field of orthopedics?
There are training programs inside Saudi Arabia, and there are doctors who train in Saudi Arabia, and some of them train in rare fields in America and Canada, and of course there are specialized and rare national cadres working abroad, and Saudi Arabia is in contact with the outside within the sector of the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties.
The health sector is the most important characteristic of Jeddah. Can Jeddah be transformed into a health tourism resort?
The private sector constitutes 60 percent of the size of hospitals and clinics in Jeddah, and there is a trend towards Jeddah becoming a healthy city, and a good percentage of all neighboring countries are attending for treatment, especially from the Gulf countries, and I expect the matter to increase after Saudi Arabia joins the Trade Organization It can compete with European countries that are attractive for therapeutic swimming.
Cartilage diseases have also become a common disease, what do you think?
This is true, it has been found that men who drive cars as a profession are the most affected by spinal diseases - usually cartilage wear and tear occurs, and the cartilage is circular fibers in the middle of a gel material, so the vehicle''s slight vibration by the material coming out from between the fibers, and pain occurs, The reason is due to the long session, in addition to the vibrations resulting from the vibration of the car, the person may not feel it, but it is very effective, and here I issued a warning to pay attention to this dangerous matter. A scientific conference I attended recently in the Italian capital Rome concluded that imposing calcium on orthopedic patients is not correct, because this element is present in most foods, but the problem with vitamin D is limited sources.
