Richmond Chiropractic Exercise Ideas for Knee Osteoarthritis Management
Countless people have knee osteoarthritis in both or one knee. That doesn’t make it any easier on its sufferers though. Johnson Chiropractic has some novel exercise tips and treatments our Richmond knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients will want to try for themselves.
KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS (KOA): What It Is and How Common It Is
Knee osteoarthritis is aging-related and oh so common! 86 million people globally over 20 years old were diagnosed with it in 2020. Typically, knee osteoarthritis sufferers experience a loss of knee extensor strength, an increase in the severity of knee pain, and a drop 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 demonstrated a positive effect on cartilage structure despite not yet knowing which exercise is best. (2) Johnson Chiropractic sees new treatment ideas being studied all the time.
KOA TREATMENT: Your Richmond 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 – reported 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) Johnson Chiropractic can link this treatment (and even some cartilage-supporting nutrition!) with your home-exercise for relief.
KOA TREATMENT: YOU, our Richmond knee pain patient
Even though the benefits of exercise abound for KOA is well known, KOA sufferers are not known to stick to the exercise practice. One study set up an easy-to-follow video set and calendar system that automatically noted when their did the exercises that showed an 82.4% participation rate. Not bad! The patients also described satisfaction, pain reduction, and better physical function. (4) One month-long intervention of single knee, non-KOA knee extensor strength training resulted in 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 maintained itself for 3 months. (1) Johnson Chiropractic knows 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 just 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 enhance 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 modified various blood tests in female patients with unilateral KOA and discovered that markers for skeletal muscle tissues were higher. (6) All these studies on a variety of approaches to manage knee osteoarthritis may hopefully unearth a way to ease/prevent/better manage this common condition.
CONTACT Johnson Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Luigi Albano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes relieving chiropractic knee treatment via The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for patients with KOA.
Schedule your Richmond chiropractic appointment today. Are you ready for some knee pain relief? Come in for a visit!
