Best Practices for Hip and Knee OA Includes Dietary Interventions

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, CNPT, ATC/L, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

A few months back a major article was published regarding osteoarthritis treatment guidelines from 6 major professional organizations. Physical therapists (PTs), athletic trainers (ATs), occupational therapists (OTs), and Physicians use these professional guidelines to help direct our care. As many of us know, OA  can lead to great loss of function, increased pain, and higher expenses. As such, having the most current and best evidence is vitally important to helping our patients move better, have less pain, and reduce costs.

For years the mainstay treatment in physical therapy has been exercise and manual therapy. Obviously these treatments depend on the specific joint, as many DPTs often use aquatic therapy to help with hip osteoarthritis. Lately the utilization of dry needling has helped patients with knee OA. The use of other therapies...

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, CNPT, Cert-DN

There's always a blog or hot article on your newsfeed talking about a "miracle" nutrient or special vitamin. While many of these articles are complete clickbait or mere fluff to get you to buy their supplements, this article has some science and experience behind it. Now that we have that settled, I want to explore the one nutrient that I think has the biggest impact on clients with arthritis: fiber. 

Arthritis comes in several forms but the 2 most common types are osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We as physical therapists (PTs) often help clients with both of these diseases. From exercises, manual therapy, modalities, dry needling, and education -- our roles as PTs is to help our clients move better and reduce their pain. So, how does all this physical therapy talk for OA and RA fit in with fiber? 

Fiber is uniquely a plant-based product that is essentially indigestible to human...

Last week, I slammed the Journal of Orthopedic and Sports PT (JOSPT) for not including nutrition in their CPGs regarding concussions. This week, I want to laud them for including a great meta-analysis on knee, hip, and spine osteoarthritis (OA) in relation to weight loss in this month's journal.

As physical therapists (PTs), we know that musculoskeletal disorders like knee, hip, and back OA account for a huge portion of healthcare spending. We also know that OA of these joints greatly impacts quality of life, function, and ultimately long-term disability. Physical therapists do their best to offer cutting-edge treatment like exercise and patient education.

Current research shows that people with arthritis can greatly reduce their pain, improve their movement, and restore their strength with physical therapy. Often the best treatments are active exercises, education, activity progression, and manual therapy to initially help to reduce pain. Dry needling has been shown to...