Christ­mas is here and it’s the most won­der­ful time of the year. It is al­so the busiest sea­son, al­so re­ferred to as the “sil­ly sea­son,” be­cause, in­ter­est­ing­ly, while it is a very fes­tive and jol­ly time, Christ­mas is al­so when many in­ci­dents and in­juries oc­cur. And many peo­ple bring in the new year with pain and dis­abil­i­ty, while some are un­avoid­able, ma­jor­i­ty could be pre­vent­ed and save your­self ad­di­tion­al spend­ing on re­cov­ery or less time out of work (es­pe­cial­ly for self-em­ployed) in the new year.

Christ­mas aches and pains

First­ly, dur­ing the year there is a fair­ly av­er­age time per­sons will take to clean their hous­es, how­ev­er in the days or weeks lead­ing up to Christ­mas there tends to be a lot of clean­ing in and around the house, paint­ing, shift­ing around fur­ni­ture, chang­ing cur­tains, repack­ing shelves (a lot of over­head ac­tiv­i­ties, lift­ing, push­ing, pulling etc.). This sud­den and dras­tic in­crease in work­load cause some per­sons to de­vel­op aches and pains in var­i­ous joints and mus­cles and some­times old in­juries are
ag­gra­vat­ed. Pre­vent­ing this is sim­ple. First­ly Christ­mas is a time for fam­i­ly, so it is im­por­tant to share the work­load and in­cor­po­rate the fam­i­ly in all these ac­tiv­i­ties, al­ways ask for help when you per­ceive some­thing is hard to do or heavy to move.

Many per­sons tend to ag­gra­vate back and knee pain dur­ing De­cem­ber. Al­ways pace your­self, do­ing one ac­tiv­i­ty con­tin­u­ous­ly for hours can in­crease your risk of in­jury.

Rest is very im­por­tant, some days take it easy and al­low your body to re­cov­er from the work­load, es­pe­cial­ly if you are work­ing in the days and Christ­mas clean­ing in the nights.

Bring out the rum?

Al­co­hol con­sump­tion is nor­mal­ly in­creased dur­ing Christ­mas sea­son, as a re­sult there tends to be more fights, al­co­hol poi­son­ing and es­pe­cial­ly mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dents as a re­sult of drink­ing and dri­ving.

More ve­hi­cles will be on the road be­cause it is such a busy sea­son and a lot of per­sons vis­it­ing fam­i­lies and friends, shop­ping, par­ty­ing, etc. and so the like­li­hood for ac­ci­dents will in­crease es­pe­cial­ly when drunk dri­vers are on the road.

Mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dents re­sult in in­juries that can range from sim­ple scratch­es and bruis­es to mus­cle spasms to bro­ken bones to dam­aged spines, brain in­jury and worst case sce­nario death.

Mo­tor ve­hi­cle ac­ci­dents are a ma­jor cause of dis­abil­i­ty for some peo­ple, lead­ing to large med­ical ex­pens­es for re­cov­ery and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. The ad­vice is to be wise in your drink­ing, know your lim­its, have a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver, re­mem­ber you can have fun with­out get­ting drunk and last­ly be kind and cour­te­ous to oth­ers on the road.

Falls and in­juries

Clean­ing and dec­o­rat­ing through­out the Christ­mas sea­son, means there would be more ob­jects in our way as we walk around our home, there might be wet floors from clean­ing and pow­er wash­ing, paint and con­tain­ers all over. These presents haz­ards for slip­ping and falling and sus­tain­ing in­juries, while this might not be a prob­lem for most, we have to re­mem­ber the el­der­lies, those with neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions or vi­su­al­ly im­paired amongst us whose abil­i­ty to walk and ma­neu­ver around ob­jects might be im­paired. They are at in­creased risk of falling, slip­ping and trip­ping over ob­jects. In­juries can be mi­nor from falls, but some might re­sult in head in­juries or frac­tures, es­pe­cial­ly that of the hip, which are ma­jor caus­es of dis­abil­i­ty in old­er peo­ple.

Here are some tips for the fam­i­ly:

• In­vest in a prop­er step lat­er, stools and chairs may not be safe.

• Do not leave dec­o­ra­tions or elec­tri­cal cords care­less­ly along the ground

• En­cour­age chil­dren to put away their new toys prop­er­ly

• Keep walk­ways clear

• Keep on lights in the hall­way, so that guests in the night could nav­i­gate their way to the bath­room.

Elec­tri­cal and fire safe­ty tips

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we love bright lights and dec­o­ra­tions, and the dif­fer­ence they bring to the home at­mos­phere, how­ev­er we have to be safe in all we do to pre­vent in­juries (burns), loss of life and prop­er­ties as a re­sult of elec­tri­cal fires.

• En­sure your Christ­mas lights are not dam­aged be­fore use.

• Turn off lights when not at home.

• En­sure lights used out­side were de­signed for out­side use.

• Do not over­load cir­cuits.

• Su­per­vise chil­dren as they play and en­sure they do not in­ter­fere with lights.

Kitchen safe­ty

• Keep younger chil­dren out of the kitchen, to avoid in­jury from sharp and point­ed ob­jects such as knives.

• There is a lot of cook­ing and bak­ing that will be tak­ing place, it is im­por­tant to take pre­cau­tions to avoid burns.

• En­sure your gas cylin­ders are prop­er­ly fit­ted when you are switch­ing be­tween tanks to fin­ish your food prepa­ra­tion.

There are many more safe­ty tips, all can­not be list­ed. How­ev­er, Christ­mas is a hap­py time, so en­joy, have fun and, most im­por­tant­ly, be safe.

Have a Mer­ry Christ­mas
and Hap­py Healthy New Year!