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 familiar condition around
the world. Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation promotes exercise to our our Tonawanda
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 studies tout a few new
treatment approaches to try, too.
OSTEOARTHRITIS
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of degenerated cartilage or
wear and tear harm to cartilage giving rise to
disability and other health problems impacting over 500 million
adults around the world. 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 decrease
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 improve
muscle strength and decrease joint pain. Surgery
(arthroscopy and joint replacement therapy) was explained to be
a last treatment option. The authors of this paper highlighted
that precautions to keep joints healthy and disease-free were advisable
and necessary. (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 bigger
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 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 of value. For patients
with osteoarthritis who went through 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 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 become more available
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 after
treatments, the PRP didn’t improve 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 added cost to the combined treatment, it did
not 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 efficacy of such treatments as PRP.
CONTACT Chiropractic Spine Sports And Rehabilitation
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 include
along with exercise!
Schedule your Tonawanda chiropractic
appointment soon. From what we read, it looks like
exercise is still ‘king’ when managing osteoarthritis of
the knee. We can help you find the right exercises and even incorporate
some distraction to help the knee.