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The Top Auburn Knee Osteoarthritis Treatment: Exercise

Knee pain…the likelihood that you experience or will experience knee pain or know someone suffering with knee pain is high. Knee pain caused by osteoarthritis is a shared condition around the world. Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. promotes exercise to our our Auburn chiropractic knee pain patients. 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 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 goal 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 paper 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 helpful to your pain? Your desired outcome is the most important. For osteoarthritis, one of the foremost 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 tackling 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 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 analyzed was that a rise 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 compared 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 didn’t change pain in mild-to-mode knee OA patients weighed against 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 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 improve function. (4) Certainly, more studies will continue to document the efficacy of such treatments as PRP.

CONTACT Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C.

Listen to this PODCAST on Osteoarthritis of the Knee with Dr. Luigi Albano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he shares the effectiveness of the 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 Auburn chiropractic appointment today. 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.

 
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"This information and website content is not intended to diagnose, guarantee results, or recommend specific treatment or activity. It is designed to educate and inform only. Please consult your physician for a thorough examination leading to a diagnosis and well-planned treatment strategy. See more details on the DISCLAIMER page. Content is reviewed by Dr. James M. Cox I."