The Top Georgetown Knee Osteoarthritis Treatment: Exercise
Knee pain…the likelihood that you have or will have knee pain or know someone suffering with knee pain is above average. Knee pain caused by osteoarthritis is a common condition around the world. Dr. Butwell promotes exercise to our our Georgetown chiropractic knee pain patients. We know we sound like a broken record on exercise, but exercise remains ‘king’ when it comes to knee pain care! And other new knee pain research touts a few new treatment approaches 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. 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 consist of NSAIDs while non-drug approaches include exercise (walking), aerobic exercise, weight loss, diet, hot/cold therapy, electrotherapy to enhance muscle strength and reduce joint pain. Surgery (arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was explained to be a last treatment option. The authors of this report concluded that precautions to keep joints healthy and disease-free were advisable and essential. (1) Those are wished for goals.
DESIRED RESULTS OF TREATMENT FOR KNEE OA
How do you determine if an intervention is successful to your pain? Your desired outcome is the most important. For osteoarthritis, one of the main diseases that hinders us humans, walking for pleasure was documented by data collected for the Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) to be statistically significant for addressing knee osteoarthritis at the genetic level. (2) Today’s researchers are also establishing a definition of 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 underwent non-surgical treatments, the amount of knee flexion they could perform after treatment was from 3.8 to 6.4 degrees. Other interesting information researchers found from the 72 studies they examined was that an increase in flexion was linked to decreased 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 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 change pain in mild-to-mode knee OA patients compared to 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 did not prove to be superior to exercise alone either. The researchers concluded with the statement that exercise alone was recommended to decrease pain and improve function. (4) Certainly, more studies will continue to reveal the impact of such treatments as PRP.
CONTACT Dr. Butwell
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 effective gentle, adapted protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating the osteoarthritic knee! A helpful, relieving treatment approach to include along with exercise!
Schedule your Georgetown chiropractic appointment today. From what we read, it seems 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.
