Knee osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis that causes knee pain. Both men and women are equally affected, and it is a significant cause of disability. Knee osteoarthritis is a deteriorating joint disease that causes the weakening of the articular cartilage over time.
Fortunately, physiotherapists can help in providing non-invasive treatment for knee osteoarthritis. It can significantly minimise the severity of osteoarthritis symptoms without the need for surgery.
How Our Physiotherapy Can Help with Knee Osteoarthritis
Let us now look at the key role played by physiotherapy to help with knee osteoarthritis.
- Heat and cold treatments: Knee physiotherapy includes the use of heat and cold treatments to reduce swelling and increase the flow of blood to the joint and muscles surrounding the knee.
- Hydrotherapy: It’s another way to treat osteoarthritis. This treatment uses water to decrease the symptoms of osteoarthritis.
- Exercises: We can also teach you to manage your osteoarthritis easily at home by performing strengthening and stretching exercises, flexibility exercises, motion exercises, etc. Regularly performing the appropriate stretches and movements will result in increased knee joint mobility and range of motion.
- Manual therapy and bracing: Besides stretches, bracing, and manual therapy are the other options that our physical therapist can help you with.
Our physiotherapist will assess your progress on a regular basis, make changes to your exercise programme, and add appropriate progressions to make sure you see positive changes in how your knee joint is functioning.
By strengthening knee-associated muscles, you will provide additional joint stability. Make sure you maintain a healthy lifestyle to prevent its progress.
According to research, having a healthy lifestyle such as exercising daily, eating good food, etc. can effectively manage knee osteoarthritis by significantly reducing pain and improving its function.
Our physiotherapists can design an effective exercise programme to help you manage your osteoarthritis on a daily basis. If you have been struggling with knee osteoarthritis for a long time, don’t delay the treatment at least now. We have highly experienced specialists who can provide excellent treatment for an easy cure in a short period.
What are the Common Risk Factors for Knee Osteoarthritis?
- Age: Usually, knee osteoarthritis is significantly seen in adults who are above the age of 50. So, age is the common risk factor for knee osteoarthritis.
- Gender factor: Did you know? More than men, women suffer from knee osteoarthritis.
- Body mass index: Being overweight is one of the major causes of knee osteoarthritis as it produces higher loads on both knees.
- Sports injuries: Individuals with a knee injury have a higher risk of developing this disease.
Besides these, there are a lot more factors that contribute to knee osteoarthritis. We suggest you maintain a healthy lifestyle and get physiotherapy regularly to prevent the progression of this disease.
Lifestyle Changes that Prevent Knee Osteoarthritis
Some of the key lifestyle changes that you can do to prevent knee osteoarthritis are:
- Repetitive motion of lifting, kneeling, or twisting can aggravate this disease. So, avoid them as much as possible.
- Controlling your weight is extremely important to prevent osteoarthritis. So, eat right! Though there is no specific diet to be followed for these patients, you must eat right. Consume foods that have omega-3 fatty acids as these are healthy fats and can minimise joint inflammation. Consume walnuts, soybean, flaxseed/linseed, etc. Moreover, consume Vitamin D in your diet, and the best foods are mackerel, salmon, tuna, etc.
- Exercise is very important for those suffering from osteoarthritis. The safest exercises are those that don’t put much of your body weight on the joints. So, try bicycling, swimming, and other water exercises.
- Avoiding injuries is extremely important. If you are injured, treat it immediately. Usually, those who have injured their knee during young adulthood have a greater chance of getting knee osteoarthritis.
Hope you have got an understanding of how a healthy lifestyle and physiotherapy can significantly prevent your knee osteoarthritis. If you want to know more, consult our physiotherapy specialists right away.