Does Manual Therapy help with OA?

The answer is yes, at least according to this lit review.

The “data crunching” found that manual therapy, defined as any hands on treatment rendered, with (and without) exercise therapy resulted in reducing pain, improving function, ROM and physical performance in patients with knee OA, at least in the short term. 

Anwer et al., Effects of orthopaedic manual therapy in knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Physiother 104 (2018) 264-276.

Just because it looks good, doesn’t mean that it is.

We have all had patients with seemingly negative knee x rays and pain, only to develop arthritic changes at a later date. Find and treat the cause!

“Our analysis found that incident radiographic knee osteoarthritis is preceded by prodromal symptoms lasting at least 2-3 years. This has potential implications for understanding phasic development and progression of osteoarthritis and for early recognition and management.”

Case R, Thomas E, Clarke E, Peat G. Prodromal symptoms in knee osteoarthritis: a nested case-control study using data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Osteoarthritis Cartilage 2015 Apr 2. [Epub ahead of print]

picture from: http://whyfiles.org/…/chronic-pain-understanding-the-roots…/