My daughters Lisa and Jennifer have both suffered with headaches and stress related issues, without Richard’s expertise in osteopathy and his ability to treat their backs, necks and heads, thus giving them the release from their reoccurring headaches and pain, their lives would be far from normal.
DO KNEE SUPPORTS WORK ?
We treat & advise on the management of osteoarthritis of the knee for many people in the Epsom, Ewell & Chessington area so I though i’d postthe following short abstract which was published in Medscape & whilst not much detail is given it was an interesting bit of research.
Wearing a soft knee brace has been shown to reduce self-reported knee instability in persons with knee OA. There is a need to assess whether a soft knee brace has a beneficial effect on objectively assessed dynamic knee instability as well. The aims of the study were to evaluate the effect of a soft knee brace on objectively assessed dynamic knee instability and to assess the difference in effect between a non-tight and a tight soft knee brace in persons with knee OA.
Methods:Thirty-eight persons with knee OA and self-reported knee instability participated in a laboratory study. A within-subject design was used comparing no brace vsbrace and comparing a non-tight vsa tight brace. The primary outcome measure was dynamic knee instability, expressed by the perturbation response (PR). The PR reflects deviation in the mean knee varus–valgus angle during level walking after a controlled mechanical perturbation. Linear mixed-effect model analysis was used to evaluate the effect of a brace on dynamic knee instability.
Results:Wearing a brace significantly reduced the PR compared with not wearing a brace. There was no difference between a non-tight and a tight brace.
Conclusion:This study is the first to report that wearing a soft knee brace reduces objectively assessed dynamic knee instability in persons with knee OA. Wearing a soft brace results in an objective improvement of knee instability beyond subjectively reported improvement.
Richard Katesmark comments; Generallyour aim here at Epsom and Ewell osteopathic clinic is to manage Knee osteoarthritis with treatment & stabilising home exercises so that supports are not needed. However there is no doubt that a good well fitting support can help particularly in the more severe cases.