The Top Concord, NC Knee Osteoarthritis Treatment: Exercise
Knee pain…the chance that you have or will have knee pain or know someone suffering with knee pain is above average. Knee pain due to osteoarthritis is a familiar condition around the world. Pure Chiropractic encourages our Concord, NC chiropractic knee pain patients to exercise. We know we sound like a broken record when it comes to exercise, but exercise is still ‘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 the leading types with knee OA being the most common. The goal 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 lessen joint pain. Surgery (arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was explained to be 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 desired outcome rules. For osteoarthritis, one of the foremost diseases that disables 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 see as making the treatment worthwhile to have undergone. For patients with osteoarthritis who went through non-surgical treatments, the amount of knee flexion they could do after treatment was from 3.8 to 6.4 degrees. Other interesting information researchers found from the 72 studies they examined was that a rise in flexion was associated with lessened pain and increased 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 compared three treatment combinations 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 didn’t change 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 prove to be superior to 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 document the efficacy of such treatments as PRP.
CONTACT Pure Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST on Osteoarthritis of the Knee with Dr. Luigi Albano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he details the effective 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 Concord, NC 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 integrate some distraction to help the knee.
