Havelock Physiotherapy

World Physiotherapy Day September 8th

Posted by Anne - No Comments

This year the focus of Physiotherapy Day in New Zealand is to raise public awareness of the benefits of physiotherapy for arthritic conditions. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic joint condition leading to pain, loss of functional independence and reduced quality of life. It also imposes a substantial economic burden on the community. It commonly affects the knee and the hip joints. As there is no cure for OA the main aim in management is to improve symptoms, particularly of pain and to improve the functioning of the joint.
There is strong evidence to show beneficial effects of exercise on pain and function for knee osteoarthritis. Indeed effectiveness of exercise is comparable to that of drug therapies but exercise has fewer side effects. It is recommended that the exercise programme consists of a combination of strengthening, aerobic and functional exercise. Physiotherapists are skilled at setting up these programmes and overseeing them.
The challenge remains to increase the proportion of patients exercising and to find ways of improving adherence is needed for long term effectiveness. Therapist contact is shown to improve outcomes, where the exercise is supervised either individually or in a group setting followed by a home programme.
It is very normal to have difficulty in working out what to do and then to maintain doing it! So don’t hesitate to ask your physiotherapist to help with this.