A NIGERIAN public health practitioner based in Ireland, Oladimeji Oyeleye, has canvassed the need for the inclusion of integrated biomechanical programme into national health plan for the treatment of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD).Oyeleye, in an interview with The Guardian recently, explained that integrated biomechanical programme incorporates prevention, early and prompt intervention, rehabilitation and treatment for secondary complications of NCD like stroke, diabetes, and other musculoskeletal injuries like knee, back, neck, ankle, hip and foot problems.He also asserted that other problems like heel pain, flat feet, shin splint, postural problems, limb length discrepancy, growing pain (in children), among others will benefit from the programme.According to him, the Global Burden of Disease of the World Health Organisation in 2005 estimates that NCD accounted for 54 per cent of deaths in developing countries, compared with 36 per cent attributed to communicable (infectious) diseases.According to him, in 2005 alone, 35 million deaths were recorded due to NCD with many more sufferers left with varying degrees of disabilities.The share of chronic diseases is predicted to rise to 65 per cent by 2030 and will cost developing nations like Nigeria up to $84 billion by 2015 if nothing is done to slow their growth, he stressed.The health practitioner also explained that the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases will put additional strain on households and the healthcare systems of the affected nation.'In Nigeria for instance, chronic disease burden causes greater number of adult medical admissions and deaths compared to communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS, etc. It also poses a serious threat to health and longevity. The WHO 2008 estimate informs us of 41.5 per cent and 41.8 per cent of male and female under-60 death respectively ' in other words, the per cent of total mortality.'NCD affects people across all socio-economic divide and its impacts are not just at a personal level for the sufferers alone. There are direct consequences: Ill-health (morbidity), hospital admission, increased cost of care, medical complications and death; indirect effects: disability, reduced productivity and human capital, socio-economic impacts on a community and the nation; and intangible costs: Pain and suffering, anxiety and anguish, bereavement, impact on relationships and family dynamics and other psychological fallouts, he said.Using a simple scenario, he explained that human beings take between 8,000-10,000 steps daily. 'Over 115,000 miles in our lifetime, more than travelling round the globe four times). Our feet house a quarter of the bones in our body with hundreds of ligaments, tendons, soft tissues and sweat glands.'The human foot is the foundation of our interaction between the human skeleton and mother earth. Leonardo Da Vinci described the human foot as an 'engineering work of art'. The human foot encounters 1.5-2 times the amount of our body weight standing, walking and running. Normal foot will function without making demand on other parts of the human body. This means the muscles move the joint, arches (building block) distributes the pressure and the fat pads absorb pressure from the sole of the foot.'Therefore, anything that interferes with this interaction will ultimately affect our ability to walk and function. Increased pressure on the foot due to inappropriate footwear and increased body weight, for example would lead to changes in the structure of the foot. This manifests as problems anywhere along the human skeleton between the foot and the skull.
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