Knee Osteoarthritis: Exercise is the key to strong and healthy joints
One of the main causes of knee pain and stiffness is osteoarthritis, a condition that affects many people especially after the age of 45. If you have knee osteoarthritis, you might notice that pain is worse in the morning and after sitting for a long time. Certain activities like walking, climbing stairs, squatting or kneeling might be affected. Pain is certainly something that can have a significant impact on our daily life and on the activities that we love. For this reason, it is helpful to know what is best to do to manage pain and improve function and activity.
What can I do for knee osteoarthritis?
Many people are often advised to take pain medication and rest, avoiding painful activities to prevent further damage of the joint. Unfortunately, rest will worsen pain and function over a long time. In fact, our joints need movement and loading to stimulate repair and keep them strong.
Therefore, exercise is what can help you to get back to the activities that you love, and help your joints to be stronger and healthier.
If I feel pain with certain activities, am I damaging my knee?
There is a poor correlation between pain and damage reported on scans. Pain is the response of our brains to a perceived threat and it is influenced by fear, stress, anxiety, sedentary and poor sleep. Therefore, exercises and simple activities like climbing stairs or standing up from a chair even if painful are not causing more damage.
What type of exercises can I do?
Strengthening, cardiovascular and mobility exercises have been shown to be helpful for osteoarthritis. Research shows it can even prolong the need for and sometimes even prevent the need for surgery. It is better to start light and progressively increase the intensity once your body get more used to exercising. If the pain is severe it might be appropriate to start exercising in the pool where decreased weight bearing can make exercises easier and allow your body to adapt to the movements.
Experiencing some pain or a slight increase in pain during and after the exercises is fine as long as it settles in 24 hours and is not too severe.
Besides exercises, are there other recommendations?
Other factors to consider to help the management of knee osteoarthritis are adopting a healthy diet to prevent to gain weight, having a good quality of sleep, limiting smoking and keep stress low.
If you feel stuck and you don’t know where to start, here at Back In Motion, Melbourne On Collins experienced physiotherapists can help you with a thorough assessment and guide you through an exercise program.