Shoveling the walkway outside her Cleveland Heights building was not how Marlene Goldheimer planned to spend her Thursday, but she wanted to make sure her roommate, who was headed home from the airport, was able to get into the building safely.
“Supposedly the snow plow people were supposed to come, but they didn’t, so guess what? I’m getting exercise,” Goldheimer said.
But doctors like University Hospitals’ cardiologist Guilherme Oliveira said shoveling in the cold can increase blood pressure and reduce oxygen flow to the heart.
“Every year ERs everywhere are filled during the winter with people having heartaches from shoveling snow,” Dr. Oliveira said.
According to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, more than 11,000 people are hospitalized each year from shoveling snow. Those problems include exertion, lower back soft tissue injuries and heart attacks. Men make up about 67 percent of those injured and about 22 percent happen to people over 55-years-old. Each year, the study said, about 100 Americans die.
"If you have any underlying coronary disease or any kind of heart disease and you all of a sudden are doing a lot of exercise that you were not planning to do,” Dr. Oliveira said, “That can put you at risk for heart attacks.”
He recommends hiring a professional, but if one must pick up a shovel, he advised dressing in layers and doing what Goldheimer said she planned to do, which is take plenty of breaks.
“I’m not going to do the whole yard,” she said, “Just enough so people can get in to the building and then I’m going to call the person who’s supposed to be plowing and remind him to get here!”
Most injuries happen near the home and older adults are not not the only ones at risk. That same study showed 15 percent of those injured are children under 18.
