BAD KNEES? PHYSICAL THERAPY CAN HELP.

Many people suffer from osteoarthritis of the knee, which is a degenerative joint disease where the cartilage that covers the ends of the bones in your joint deteriorate.  This deterioration causes bone to rub against bone and is one of the primary reasons people receive arthroscopic knee surgery.

This surgery is one of the most unnecessary surgeries which is being performed today, as the results of it are proven to be no better than a placebo surgery.  A study which was published over ten years ago in a well respected medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), proves this in a double blind placebo controlled multi-center study.  

Despite this incredible finding, there are still about 510,000 people in the United States who undergo this arthroscopic knee surgery every year.  This surgery is also commonly done to repair a torn meniscus, which is the crescent shaped structure that acts like a cushion in your knee. Now you would think that this problem would definitely warrant surgery. However, recent study which was also published in the NEJM, shows that physical therapy can be just as good as surgery for a torn meniscus.

According to the Washington Post, this study claims to be one of the best studies yet comparing treatments for knee pain caused by a torn meniscus or arthritis.  This is what they said about the study:

"Researchers at seven major universities and orthopedic surgery centers around the U.S. assigned 351 people with arthritis and meniscus tears to get either surgery or physical therapy. The therapy was nine sessions on average plus exercises to do at home, which experts say is key to success.

After six months, both groups had similar rates of functional improvement. Pain scores also were similar.

Thirty percent of patients assigned to physical therapy wound up having surgery before the six months was up, often because they felt therapy wasn't helping them.  Yet they ended up the same as those who got surgery right away, as well as the rest of the physical therapy group who stuck with it and avoided having an operation."