Foothills PT News FoothillsPTMaine.com • 207-625-4300
ARTHRITIS If you have hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA), you might not be getting enough daily physical exercise and activity! The Journal of Orthopedic and Sports Physical Therapy (June, 2018) highlights the importance of learning about the benefits of physical activity and exercise for improving your pain and preventing other chronic health conditions that often develop in those diagnosed with hip or knee OA. FROM THE DESK OF Tom Thoman 1. Exercise and physical activity should be tailored to your needs and preferences. 2. Consider water exercises if it is too painful to exercise on land. 3. Supervised exercise therapy over a 6-week period is often helpful to get you started. 5. After you complete supervised therapy, you may need periodic “booster sessions” to help with long-term management of your OA pain and overall health. 6. Home exercises should be performed to optimize your outcomes. 7. You should be sure you understand how to manage painful flare-ups and how to modify your exercises when pain increases. If you have arthritis pain, physical therapy may be just what you need to start and keep moving! The authors offer 7 key recommendations. 4. Some people may need 12 weeks of supervised therapy to begin.
THE HISTORY BEHIND THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS T urkey , F ootball , and B lack F riday
“There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.” –O. Henry
In our lifetimes, Thanksgiving hasn’t changed all that much. Sure, you may have modernized the menu and begun posting your family photos to Instagram, but the tried-and-true quartet of family, football, grub, and gratitude has been in place for generations. While it’s easy to take holiday traditions as a given, each one has a fascinating history all its own. Christmas trees, Valentine’s chocolate, and other de rigueur activities often have strange, unexpected origins. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the backstories behind some of the essential Thanksgiving traditions. TURKEY Unlike other items on this list, it’s likely that turkey has been a staple of Thanksgivings since the first Thanksgiving in 1621. At the time, the holiday didn’t even have a name, and it was still more than 200 years away from being officially recognized by Abraham Lincoln. There are only two primary source documents detailing the meal between the Massachusetts colonists and the Wampanoag natives, and one of them mentions the famous Thanksgiving bird explicitly. Plymouth County Governor William Bradford described the menu in his journal “Of Plymouth Plantation,”which is one of the earliest accounts of life in colonial America. “Besides waterfowl,” he wrote, “there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc.” As the colonists moved throughout the continent, they brought turkeys with them. In fact, there was even a specific role, called a “turkey drover,” for the person who would shepherd the birds from one part of the country to another.
-Tom Thoman
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