Hold the cane on the side that does not hurt

Method of the week

There is a hickory cane in the umbrella stand by our back door, and for three years Carol’s father held it in the wrong hand.

His name was Frank, and his right hip was worn out. So he did what made sense to him. He held the cane on the right, the sore side, and leaned on it hard. So he walked with a tilt, and he hurt. His doctor moved the cane to his left hand in about ten seconds. Frank grumbled for a week before he would admit it felt better.

I thought of Frank this week while I read up on hips. A lot of us get it wrong the same way he did. It feels right to put the help on the side that hurts… but the body does not work that way, and the reason is neat.

So I went looking for proof. Not a sales pitch, but a real study with real numbers. I found one, plus a nod from the people who write the rules for doctors in Britain. It is a small pile of proof, and I will say so as we go. But a plain cane costs less than a tank of gas, and the downside is small.

Why the other hand

Here is what goes on each time you take a step. For a moment, all your weight sits on one leg. Your pelvis, the bowl of bone your legs hang from, wants to drop on the other side. So the muscles on the side of your standing hip pull hard to hold it level. That is the gluteus medius, the side hip muscle from Monday’s leg raise.

That pull is strong, and it squeezes the ball of the hip into its socket. In other words, much of the load on a hip joint comes from your own muscles, not just your weight. A worn hip feels all of that squeeze. Every step.

Now put a cane in the opposite hand. When you lean on it, it props up the side of the pelvis that wants to drop. So the side muscles on the sore hip do not have to pull as hard. Less pull means less squeeze. Or put another way, the cane is a lever, and it works best from the far side.

Hold it on the sore side and you lose most of that lever. You tend to lean toward the cane, the way Frank did. It looks like help. It is a lot less help than it looks.

The study

The best test I found came out of Japan in 2022. It ran in a journal called Archives of Rehabilitation Research and Clinical Translation, and the lead author was Tazawa. There were 27 people, 17 women and 10 men. Each had one badly worn hip, and each was on the list for a new one.

Then they walked across a lab floor twice, once with a cane in the opposite hand and once without. Plates in the floor and cameras on the walls tracked how hard the hip was pushed sideways. The cane was set so the handle sat at the bony knob on the side of the hip.

With the cane, the peak sideways load on the sore hip fell by about a quarter. The raw numbers went from 0.76 to 0.57, in units only an engineer could love. Pain fell too… on a scale of 0 to 100, it dropped from about 42 to about 26.

That is a big drop. Not a cure. A walk that hurts less.

The honest small print

This was a small study, and a short one. Each person was tested on one day in a lab. Nobody followed them for months to see if the gain held up at home. And they were younger than most of us, with an average age of about 53.

They also knew when they had a cane in hand, and they rated their own pain. That can tilt the score. It often does. I would not bet much on the exact number 26.

There is a cost on the good side, too. The healthy hip took a bit more load with the cane. The gap was small and could have been chance… but if both your hips ache, keep it in mind.

Then there is NICE, the body that writes health rules for doctors in Britain. Its 2022 advice on arthritis says doctors should think about walking aids, such as a stick, for sore hips and knees. NICE was frank that the proof was thin, from one small study. It made the call anyway, because an aid helps people keep moving. And moving is the main treatment for a worn hip.

How to fit and use one

Cleveland Clinic has a clear guide, and these steps follow it. Take five minutes. Grab a mirror.

Check the rubber tip now and then. A worn tip slides on a wet floor, and a fall is the last thing a sore hip needs. Cleveland Clinic also says not to push up on the cane to get out of a chair. It can tip.

If it still feels wrong, ask a physical therapist to watch you walk. Ten minutes of their time can fix a habit you have had for years. That was all it took for Frank.

What I make of it

I do not use a cane. My trouble is my back, and a walk is my best medicine. But if my hip went the way Frank’s did, I would use one without a second thought. It is cheap. The risk is small. And the reason it helps makes sense to me, which counts for a lot.

Plenty of us dodge a cane. It is the look. I get it. Nobody wants to look old. But to my eye, a limp and a wince look older than a stick, and they keep you home more.

Frank came round in the end. He kept that hickory cane in his left hand for the rest of his life… and it is still by our back door.

Here is to a lighter step on the sore side,
Walt

The Health Brief is for education only. It is not medical advice. Always check with your own doctor about your own situation.