Exercise Your Way to Joint Health: Conquering Osteoarthritis
Have you been told you have osteoarthritis? It’s not an uncommon diagnosis but let’s break it down and make sense of it.
OA can be viewed as the clinical and pathological outcome of a range of disorders that result in structural and functional failure of synovial joints with loss and erosion of articular cartilage, sub-chondral bone alteration, meniscal degeneration, a synovial inflammatory response, and bone and cartilage overgrowth (osteophytes) (1).
So, there can be a lot of different tissues and structures affected when you are diagnosed with osteoarthritis but many people with structural changes consistent with OA are asymptomatic (2). It’s true, just not always what we are told in our healthcare society unfortunately.
All too common people are told they need a hip or knee replacement based on radiographic findings without significant physical impairment or symptoms. It’s important people exhaust conservative treatment options to address pain and functional limitations before deciding to have a major surgery. It will save you time, money, the risk of infection and complications from a surgery.
The knee joint is one of the most common joints that is diagnosed with osteoarthritis as well as the hip and joints in the fingers. There are different risk factors for osteoarthritis and one of them is muscle weakness. Muscle weakness, in particular the quadriceps with regards to the knee joint, may be an important risk factor for knee OA in women. In a study by Slemenda et al. (1997) the quadriceps muscle was found to be on average 20% weaker (even after controlling for body mass and other covariates) among those with radiographic signs of OA and appeared to predate the onset of disease in women (3).
Weakness is present even before the knee becomes painful, suggesting that deficient quadriceps strength may be a risk factor for the subsequent development of symptoms. One consequence of quadriceps weakness is that the knee is rendered less stable during risky occupational or recreational activities. To the extent that they are able to improve the dynamic stability of the knee, quadriceps exercises may offer some protective advantage to patients who are routinely engaged in high risk activities (4).
This points to strength training being an important intervention to decrease the risk of not only osteoarthritis, but pain and disability. Strength training improves your joint health as well as tendon and muscle health to decrease soft tissue injuries.
If you aren’t sure where to start and are currently dealing with knee pain, osteoarthritis or looking to start a strength program while battling an injury, working with a Doctor of Physical Therapy can help to alleviate pain and provide a detailed plan to help you get back on your feet and thriving in life.
References:
Nuki G (1999) Osteoarthritis: a problem of joint failure. Z Rheum 58, 142–147.
Hannan MT, Felson DT, Pincus T (2000) Analysis of the discordance
between radiographic changes and knee pain in osteoarthritis
of the knee. J Rheumatol 27, 1513–1517
Slemenda C, Brandt KD, Heilman DK, et al. (1997) Quadriceps weak- ness and osteoarthritis of the knee. Ann Intern Med 127, 97–104.
Hunter DJ, Eckstein F. Exercise and osteoarthritis. J Anat. 2009 Feb;214(2):197-207. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7580.2008.01013.x. PMID: 19207981; PMCID: PMC2667877.
