Manchester Chiropractic Exercise Ideas for Knee Osteoarthritis Management
Scores of people have knee osteoarthritis in one knee or both. That does not cause sufferers to feel any better about it. Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries has some new exercise tips and treatments our Manchester 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 globally over the age of 20 were diagnosed with it in 2020. Characteristically, knee osteoarthritis sufferers feel a loss of knee extensor strength, an increase in the 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 despite not yet knowing which exercise is best. (2) Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries sees new treatment ideas being published a lot.
KOA TREATMENT: Your Manchester chiropractor has it.
A chiropractic treatment approach has shown promise. A trial of Cox® flexion distraction decompression principled treatment for knee osteoarthritis – that is distraction of the knee – resulted in 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) Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries can partner this treatment (and even some cartilage-supportive nutrition!) with your home-exercise for relief.
KOA TREATMENT: YOU, our Manchester knee pain patient
Even though the benefits of exercise abound for KOA is well known, KOA sufferers don’t usually stick to the exercise practice. One study made an easy-to-follow video series and calendar system that automatically noted when their did the exercises that resulted in an 82.4% participation rate. Not bad! The patients also described satisfaction, pain reduction, and improved 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 better extensor strength and neuromuscular function of the knee with KOA continued for 3 months. (1) Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries is pretty confident a KOA sufferer will not care which knee is exercised as long as relief is forthcoming! A proposed YOGA (YOGa and strengthening exercise for knee osteoArthritis) study was recently proposed to find out if yoga’s mind-body exercise format - recognized as enhancing flexibility, muscle strength, balance and fitness - might decrease 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 looked into how blood flow restriction with low and high load resistance exercise of the KOA-affected knee altered various blood tests in female patients with single-knee KOA and found that markers for skeletal muscle tissues were higher. (6) All these studies on various approaches to manage knee osteoarthritis may hopefully unearth a way to ease/prevent/better manage this common ailment.
CONTACT Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries
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 Manchester chiropractic appointment now. Do you have knee osteoarthritis? Come in for a visit!
