Research and News
Posts tagged knee
Mike Reinold on Thera-Band Loops for Knee Rehabilitation
Jul 5th
Mike Reinold, PT ATC, Rehabilitation Coordinator and Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Boston Red Sox has a great blog on rehabilitation and conditioning at www.mikereinold.com. He’s just finishing a 7-part series on his blog on patellofemoral rehabilitation for anterior knee pain. His most recent and last post discusses using Thera-Band resistance while performing leg press or squats:
“…do you still want to squeeze that ball between your knees and emphasize hip adduction and internal rotation? I would actually recommend just the opposite. I frequently use a piece of Thera-Band (or even those new [loops] that Thera-Band just started making) around the patient’s knees during exercise. This will require the patient to isometrically control the hip from adducting and internally rotating while performing mini-squats, wall squats, leg press, and other sagittal plane exercises.”
Read Mike’s article about “The Influence of the Hip and Foot on Patellofemoral Pain.” To learn more about the new Thera-Band Loops, visit the Thera-Band Academy website and check out professional instruction videos by Todd Ellenbecker, Sue Falsone, and Barton Bishop.
Improve function before knee replacement surgery through "prehab" exercise
Apr 6th
Knee osteoarthritis affects about 4.3 million people in the United States, and nearly 400,000 knee replacements are performed each year. It’s been suggested that exercises performed before surgery help improve a patient’s recovery after surgery; this is known as “prehab,” or pre-surgical rehabilitation exercise. Researchers at the University of Louisville recently determined that prehab is effective at improving function both before and after total knee replacement surgery. Their prehab exercise program using Thera-Band resistance bands were featured in a new article published in Functional U, published by the International Council on Active Aging.
Topp R, et al. 2009. Improve function before knee replacement surgery. Functional U. 7(2):1-8.
Exercise as good as surgery for knee arthritis
Mar 31st
Knee osteoarthritis affects millions around the world with pain and disability. There is no known cure for arthritis, and the course of treatment is based on symptom management through medication, surgery and physical therapy. Some arthritis sufferers believe that exercise may cause more harm than good, and typically opt for arthroscopic surgery to ‘clean-out’ the knee. In addition to the cost of surgery, there are obvious risks. Despite the high number of arthroscopic surgeries for knee arthritis (also known as “debridement”), little evidence supported its efficacy.
Researchers from the University of Western Ontario in Canada performed a randomized controlled trial (the highest level of evidence) on 190 patients with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis. Their goal was to determine if physical and medical therapy was as effective as arthroscopic surgery. The exercise program lasted for 12 weeks, including one hour per week supervised by a therapist, and daily exercise twice a day. After the 12 weeks, the patients continued their home programs unsupervised.
The researchers found that physical therapy, including Thera-Band exercises was as effective as arthroscopic surgery for treating knee osteoarthritis. Both groups had similar outcomes for pain and function after a 2 year follow-up. The results, published in the New More >
