Georgetown Chiropractic Exercise Ideas for Knee Osteoarthritis Management
Scores of people have knee osteoarthritis in both or one knee. That does not cause sufferers to feel any better about it. Dr. Butwell has some new exercise tips and treatments our Georgetown knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients will want to attempt.
KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS (KOA): What It Is and How Common It Is
Knee osteoarthritis is aging-related and everywhere! 86 million people around the globe over the age of 20 were diagnosed with it in 2020. Typically, knee osteoarthritis sufferers have a loss of knee extensor strength, a greater severity of knee pain, and a decrease in functional performance. (1) Knee osteoarthritis is the degeneration of cartilage, part of the natural aging process whether we like it or not. Physical activity has been shown to positively affect cartilage structure even though just which physical activity is best has yet to be decided. (2) Dr. Butwell sees new treatment ideas being studied a lot.
KOA TREATMENT: Your Georgetown chiropractor has it.
A chiropractic treatment approach has shown potential. A trial of treatment based on principles of Cox® flexion distraction decompression for knee osteoarthritis – namely distraction of the knee – reported relief of patient-perceived pain from 7.7 (out of 10) to 1.8 in a mean of 5.3 visits in 3 weeks for 25 patients. (3) Dr. Butwell can link this treatment (and even some cartilage-supportive nutrition!) with your home-exercise for relief.
KOA TREATMENT: YOU, our Georgetown knee pain patient
Even though the benefits of exercise abound for KOA is well established, KOA sufferers are not known to keep doing their exercise practice. One study set up an easy-to-follow video set and automated recording calendar of when they did each video that resulted in an 82.4% participation rate. Not bad! The patients also shared their noticed satisfaction, pain reduction, and better physical function. (4) One month-long intervention of unilateral, non-KOA knee extensor strength training produced significant improvement in the knee extensor strength of the knee with KOA! This is called “cross education phenomenon.” The enhanced extensor strength and neuromuscular function of the knee with KOA continued for 3 months. (1) Dr. Butwell knows a KOA sufferer won’t care which knee is exercised as long as there is relief! A proposed YOGA (YOGa and strengthening exercise for knee osteoArthritis) study was recently proposed to see how yoga’s mind-body exercise format - known to improve flexibility, muscle strength, balance and fitness - might reduce the symptoms of knee osteoarthritis and even improve other outcomes like pain, function, quality of life, gait speed, cost effectiveness, and others. (5) Another study studied how blood flow restriction with low and high load resistance exercise of the KOA-affected knee changed various blood tests in female patients with unilateral KOA and found that markers for skeletal muscle tissues were increased. (6) All these studies on a multitude of approaches to handle knee osteoarthritis may hopefully unearth a way to ease/prevent/better manage this common ailment.
CONTACT Dr. Butwell
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Luigi Albano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates relieving chiropractic knee treatment via The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for patients with KOA.
Make your Georgetown chiropractic appointment today. Do you suffer with knee osteoarthritis? Come in for a visit!
