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...