The Top Carrolltown Knee Osteoarthritis Treatment: Exercise
Knee pain…the probability that you have or will have knee pain or know someone who suffers with knee pain is above average. Knee pain due to osteoarthritis is a common condition around the world. Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation encourages our Carrolltown chiropractic knee pain patients to exercise. We are well aware that we come across sounding like a broken record when it comes to exercise, but exercise remains ‘king’ when it comes to knee pain care! And other new knee pain research touts a few new treatment methods to try, too.
OSTEOARTHRITIS
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of degenerated cartilage or wear and tear harm to cartilage resulting in disability and other health problems affecting over 500 million adults globally. Knee OA and Hip OA are two of the most common types with knee OA being the most common. The objective of treatment of OA is management and decrease of symptoms, not cure. Drug approaches consist of NSAIDs while non-drug approaches incorporate exercise (walking), aerobic exercise, weight loss, diet, hot/cold therapy, electrotherapy to improve muscle strength and decrease joint pain. Surgery (arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was described as a last treatment option. The authors of this report highlighted that precautions to keep joints healthy and disease-free were suitable and necessary. (1) Those are hopeful goals.
DESIRED RESULTS OF TREATMENT FOR KNEE OA
How do you determine if an intervention is of value to your pain? Your hoped for outcome is the most important. For osteoarthritis, one of the bigger diseases that disables us humans, walking for pleasure was documented by data collected for the Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) to be statistically significant for managing knee osteoarthritis at the genetic level. (2) Today’s researchers are also working to define just what “minimal clinically important change” is, what the minimum improvement a patient like you would perceive or say made going through the treatment was worthwhile. For patients with osteoarthritis who underwent non-surgical treatments, the amount of knee flexion they could perform after treatment was from 3.8 to 6.4 degrees. Other pertinent information researchers uncovered from the 72 studies they examined was that an increase in flexion was linked to lessened pain and improved function. (3) These are positive findings!
…AND WHAT ABOUT PLASMA-RICH PLATELET THERAPY?
In the non-surgical realm of treatment for knee osteoarthritis, platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection has grown in availability alongside traditional exercise for knee OA pain. A randomized control trial contrasted three treatment combos PRP injection alone (three weekly injections), exercise alone (6 weeks program/12 sessions of strengthening and functional exercise), and PRP with exercise. At 24 weeks after treatments, the PRP did not impact pain in mild-to-mode knee OA patients weighed against exercise alone. Actually, the exercise alone group outcomes were clinically superior for function and health related quality of life. Even though the PRP increased cost to the combined treatment, it didn’t show itself to be better than exercise alone either. The researchers concluded with the statement that exercise alone was recommended to decrease pain and enhance function. (4) Certainly, more studies will continue to reveal the impact of such treatments as PRP.
CONTACT Gormish Chiropractic & Rehabilitation
Listen to this PODCAST on Osteoarthritis of the Knee with Dr. Luigi Albano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes the effectiveness of the gentle, adapted protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating the osteoarthritic knee! A beneficial, relieving treatment approach to incorporate with exercise!
Make your Carrolltown chiropractic appointment soon. From what we read, it looks like exercise is still ‘king’ in dealing with osteoarthritis of the knee. We can help you find the right exercises and even incorporate some distraction to help the knee.
