The Top Fernandina Beach 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 caused by osteoarthritis is a shared condition around the world. Amelia Chiropractic Clinic promotes exercise to our our Fernandina Beach chiropractic knee pain patients. We are well aware that we sound 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 studies tout a few new treatment approaches to try, too.
OSTEOARTHRITIS
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of degenerated cartilage or wear and tear damage to cartilage resulting in disability and other health problems impacting over 500 million adults around the world. Hip OA and knee OA are two of the most common types with knee OA being the most common. The objective of treatment of OA is management and decline of symptoms, not cure. Drug approaches include NSAIDs while non-drug approaches include exercise (walking), aerobic exercise, weight loss, diet, hot/cold therapy, electrotherapy to enhance muscle strength and decrease joint pain. Surgery (arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was described as a last treatment option. The authors of this report emphasized that precautions to keep joints healthy and disease-free were suitable and essential. (1) Those are desirous goals.
DESIRED RESULTS OF TREATMENT FOR KNEE OA
How do you determine if an intervention is of value to your pain? Your desired outcome rules. For osteoarthritis, one of the major diseases that hinders us humans, walking for pleasure was found 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 worth it. 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 associated with lessened pain and increased function. (3) These are positive outcomes!
…AND WHAT ABOUT PLASMA-RICH PLATELET THERAPY?
In the non-surgical realm of treatment for knee osteoarthritis, platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection has become more available 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 post treatments, the PRP did not improve pain in mild-to-mode knee OA patients compared to exercise alone. As a matter of fact, the exercise alone group outcomes were clinically superior for function and health related quality of life. Even though the PRP added cost to the combined treatment, it didn’t show itself to be superior to exercise alone either. The researchers ended their paper with the statement that exercise alone was recommended to decrease pain and improve function. (4) Certainly, more studies will continue to document the impact of such treatments as PRP.
CONTACT Amelia Chiropractic Clinic
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!
Schedule your Fernandina Beach chiropractic appointment now. From what we read, it seems like exercise is still ‘king’ when managing osteoarthritis of the knee. We can help you find the right exercises and even integrate some distraction to help the knee.
