Are there any downsides to physical therapy for knee arthritis?

There are downsides to just about every type of medical intervention. However, one of the only downsides of using physical therapy to treat knee arthritis is that it won’t reduce your symptoms. Yet even this downside is less likely than you might think. 

A study of knee osteoarthritis physical therapy reveals that up to 70% of patients who used physical therapy didn’t need to have surgery. Such a high success rate is a strong argument that physical therapy can help your knee. A major reason that this is possible is the many therapy methods that physical therapists have at their disposal. 

Three physical therapy techniques that can benefit people with knee osteoarthritis

Out of the wide range of physical therapy methods that can benefit your knee osteoarthritis, three stand out: 

1. Manual therapy — You might have heard of hands-on therapy. This is a commonly used name for a therapy category called manual therapy. Hands-on techniques get their name because physical therapists use their hands to do them. 

For knee arthritis, this means using their hands to move and manipulate affected joints. These methods can also be used on the soft tissue surrounding the affected joint. One knee osteoarthritis study shows that manual therapy helped improve pain scores by 52% in just four weeks. 

2. Therapeutic exercise — Most people associate therapeutic exercise with osteoarthritis treatment. There’s a good reason for this. Therapeutic exercise has proved helpful in treating a wide range of arthritic joints, including the knee. 

Medical researchers from one study reveal that walking can be a particularly effective exercise for knee osteoarthritis. This study reports that every 1,000 steps patients walked per day led to a 16% to 18% increase in their knee function scores. 

3. Dry needling — Many people are uncomfortable with needles. Yet one treatment method that knee osteoarthritis should consider is dry needling. This technique involves physical therapists using thin filament needles to induce a local twitch response in soft tissue. 

This twitch response can help reduce soft tissue tension around your arthritic knee joint. In turn, it can lead to less joint pain. Additionally, a study of dry needling showed that it helped 90.3% of the treatment group reduce their pain medication use. 

SSOR offers top-notch physical therapy for knee arthritis

Eager to find effective physical therapy for your knee arthritis? Our SSOR team is just as eager to help you find the therapeutic care you need. We offer comprehensive screenings that can reveal the underlying issues increasing your knee arthritis symptoms. Furthermore, our physical therapists excel at building individualized therapy plans. These plans are designed to decrease arthritis pain and improve your ability to move. 

Does your knee arthritis keep you stuck at home a lot? That’s OK! Our team offers home treatment services like virtual therapy and at-home care sessions. We can even help you get the therapy you need if you don’t have a doctor’s referral. 

Contact us today for more information about our knee arthritis treatment services or to schedule your initial appointment.