Performing corrective surgeries does not even assure a successful treatment to various knee conditions or injuries. Having dynamic factors to consider, as in movements, linkages and associations of joints, cartilages and muscles, targeting the factors that contribute to knee pain and pathology poses a great challenge. However, with the research performed by NEJM, new evidences of have supported the comparative and often more effective corrective measures done by physical therapy to various knee conditions. Such evidences reinforce the need to device a comprehensive treatment program that will eliminate or replace surgery on the treatment options.
According to the NEJM's study, which was published in the January 2008 issue of Physical Therapy, high quality evidence was found to prove that maintaining regular and corrective exercise routines combined with weight reduction significantly helped lessen the strain and pressure that is normally handled by patients suffering from knee conditions. It even reduced the pain and swelling at some point; therefore improving general physical function. In another study, which was published in the February 1, 2000 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, NEJM found that a combination of manual physical therapy and supervised exercise activities yielded significant improvements to the physical conditions of individuals suffering from osteoarthritis and other chronic knee conditions.
Of course, all the physical exertions that were done by people with knee conditions were done after doing thorough examination. Through these examinations, the physical therapist designs a plan of care that includes exercise routines and other activities that will not only promote recovery but overall well-being. For instance, a physical treatment program may start with improving motion through careful knee exercises. In this phase, the therapist may include water walking, swimming and flexibility exercises. The second phase would be strength restoration, which also involves functional progression. In this phase, the patient may be doing some exercises that will stimulate the muscles of the knees. This way, you gradually train the knee area to gradually bear with the normal stresses that it used to manage, therefore leading the patient to actually being able to do his normal activities thereon.
The results of studies done by APTA and NEJM have given patients a new hope to managing knee injuries and problems. Against the emotional and financial toll of bearing with surgery as well as other forms of treatment, physical therapy even keeps the patients hopeful towards their recovery. Whenever a patient is advised to go under the knife, there is a common notion that his or her illness is serious or terminal and there's no other treatment option but surgery. This even makes the patient more reluctant to proceeding with the treatment. After all, surgery must be the last resort. Thanks to the research done by APTA and other medical institutions; safer and manageable treatment options to knee problems have been brought to light.
The functional benefits and relief provided by physical therapy and carefully designed physical exercises as treatment alternatives to knee conditions have prevented the need for immediate surgery or surgical intervention. More than the convenience that these forms of treatment offer, they saved patients from spending huge sums of money on dealing with the uncertainty of the success of surgery and the recovery phase. Hence, furthering the study on physical therapy in finding relief and treatment to knee conditions might bring about more and more options one which patients will feel comfortable bearing and recovering with.
