Managing arthritis - exercise

• MANAGING ARTHRITIS MENU
• intro
• diet
• exercise
• orthotics & aids
• joint injection
• unloader brace
• cartilage repair
  (surgical)
• osteotomy
• interpositional discs
• partial knee replacement
• total knee replacement
• knee fusion
• amputation

At one time people thought that there was only a limited role for exercise in the management of knee arthritis as it was thought it would aggravate the condition. Over the last few years the medical profession have been looking at how exercise can be beneficial for knee arthritis.

Conclusions include:

• aerobic training, strength training or a combination were all found to improve pain symptoms, although the magnitude of the improvement varies.
• although supervised exercise programmes are beneficial, patients tend to pull out mostly because of the burden of participation, and the travel and time constraints.
• however, a home exercise programme for OA of the knee can provide important benefits, while adding a small number of clinical visits for manual therapy and supervised exercises and stretching offers even greater symptomatic relief.