The Top Auburn 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 caused by osteoarthritis is a familiar 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 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 methods 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 the leading types with knee OA being the most common. The goal of treatment of OA is management and decline 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 enhance muscle strength and lessen joint pain. Surgery (arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was described as a last treatment option. The authors of this report highlighted that precautions to keep joints healthy and disease-free were advisable and necessary. (1) Those are desirous 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 major diseases that disables us humans, walking for pleasure was documented 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 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 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 interesting information researchers found from the 72 studies they analyzed was that a rise in flexion was linked to lessened pain and improved 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 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 did not 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 show itself to be better than 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 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 describes 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 Auburn chiropractic appointment now. 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 integrate some distraction to help the knee.
