Colorado Injury Treatment Center Newsletter: Find Relief from Osteoarthritis Pain
NEWSLETTER
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Are you experiencing persistent joint pain, particularly in a weight-bearing joint like your hip or knee? Do you ever notice a clicking or grinding sensation in your painful joint? If so, you may have developed osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis in the United States.
UNDERSTANDING OSTEOARTHRITIS: SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES
Arthritis is an umbrella term for over 100 conditions that cause joint inflammation and lead to pain and restricted mobility. The source of that inflammation will vary depending on the type of arthritis. In osteoarthritis, it’s caused by degeneration of the cartilage and bone tissue in the affected joint. Osteoarthritis has no cure and can profoundly impact your overall quality of life, making it harder for you to stay active, keep up with chores, and enjoy time with your loved ones. Fortunately, physical therapy at Colorado Injury Treatment Center offers several tools and techniques to help you manage your symptoms — often enough that you can delay or even avoid surgical interventions.
The primary symptoms of osteoarthritis are pain and stiffness in the affected joint. These symptoms often manifest in the following ways: • Pain during activity but not while at rest • Pain when you press on the joint • Joint stiffness first thing in the morning • Joint stiffness after sitting or lying down for long periods • Noises in the joint, including creaking, cracking, or crunching
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WHY OSTEOARTHRITIS IS SUCH A PAIN AND HOW PHYSICAL THERAPY CAN HELP
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• Provide Strategies for Activity Modifications: Finally, we can help you identify and avoid any specific activities that might put too much strain on your joints. If needed, we can also show you how to use mobility aids (such as canes or walkers). Don’t Let Osteoarthritis Pain Hold You Back! We know that living with osteoarthritis can be difficult, but the physical therapists at Colorado Injury Treatment Center are here to help you manage your condition and live your life to the fullest. With customized treatment plans, targeted exercise programs, and acute pain management techniques, physical therapy can help you take control of osteoarthritis pain. Ready to get started? Call us to schedule your initial consultation today!
While any joint can develop osteoarthritis, it most commonly occurs in weight-bearing joints like the knees and hips. However, it’s also fairly common in the hands, spine, and feet. The causes of osteoarthritis are complex, and several factors can contribute to it. One of these factors is age: approximately 73% of people with the condition are 55 years or older. That’s not to say osteoarthritis is an inevitable part of the aging process — plenty of older people don’t have it. But your chances of developing it do increase as you age. Other possible factors contributing to osteoarthritis include past injuries to the joint, gender (women are more likely to develop it than men), body weight, and even genetic predispositions. How Physical Therapy Helps Manage Osteoarthritis Symptoms The good news is that you can control osteoarthritis symptoms with the help of physical therapy. Although movement can be painful with osteoarthritis, exercise is one of the best drug-free ways to manage the condition. Our physical therapists will help you find an exercise program that suits your needs. Here’s how we’ll do it: • Comprehensive Evaluation: We start by evaluating how osteoarthritis impacts you, including performing simple tests to assess your strength, mobility, and/or balance. We’ll also ask you about the ways that osteoarthritis is negatively affecting your life. For example, which activities do you find challenging? • Provide Pain Relief: We’ll use manual therapy techniques to help manage your pain and get the joint moving in a gentle way. For example, we might guide the joint through its current range of motion or manipulate the surrounding soft tissue. • Build Strength and Restore Mobility: We’ll develop a customized, progressive exercise program to rebuild lost strength and mobility in the affected joint. Building strength, in particular, can help support and protect the joint so you can move more easily. • Develop An At-Home Exercise Program: You’ll supplement your sessions in our clinic with a personalized home workout program to ensure you keep moving! We’ll find something that suits your abilities and interests, such as a walking program or water aerobics.
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AT-HOME EXERCISE
POSTERIOR PELVIC TILT WITH HIP CIRCLES Start by lying on your back with your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent with your arms by your sides. Tuck your pelvis by tilting your hips back so your lower back presses into the floor. Keeping your pelvis tucked and your lower back pressed into the floor, straighten one leg out with your toes pointing up. Slowly make clockwise circles with your
foot by only moving your leg at your hip joint. Then, switch directions.
Now Accepting Medicaid Patients Contact Colorado Injury Treatment Center today and get scheduled for your consultation with one of our skilled physical therapists.
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Call Colorado Injury Treatment Center at 720.853.2963 , or visit our website at coloradoinjurytreatment.com to schedule your appointment today!
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GO TO THE PAIN… Not Through the Pain The days of “no pain, no gain” are hopefully in the past. The idea of emphasizing pushing through discomfort to achieve results is not an effective solution for most people dealing with a painful condition, injury, or chronic condition. In fact, recent research suggests that a more holistic approach is effective and, indeed, safer for patients. Pain is our body’s way of letting us know that something is happening in the body. When a nerve ending is triggered, an impulse travels to the brain, alerting us that something is happening. It is a warning sign or an alarm. How this impulse is interpreted varies from person to person and is influenced by a multitude of factors. Aggressively pushing through pain can worsen the underlying issues and potentially result in long-term damage. The key is getting help from people who work with painful conditions every day, like our therapists at Colorado Injury Treatment Center! How Physical Therapy Can Help You Find Relief In cases of musculoskeletal disorders and injuries, applying excessive stress on already agitated tissues can prolong the healing process and even cause further injury. In comparison, going to the pain but not through it means cautiously approaching the edge of discomfort without crossing it, which can help your body progress without delaying your recovery. Our objective is to work within a “therapeutic window”: a range of activities that stimulates the body’s natural heal- ing mechanisms without triggering negative responses. At Colorado Injury Treatment Center, we educate our patients about pain to help them understand their con- ditions better and actively participate in treatment. Our therapist can help you learn “pacing,” where activities are broken down into manageable parts, helping you to avoid extreme ups and downs of feeling good one day and an increase in pain and inactivity the next. By respecting the body’s pain signals and working within a therapeutic window, our approach aims to achieve long-term functional gains without the risks associated with pushing through pain.
“Nothing but the best. I’ve had worse injuries in the past than I’m dealing with now, and I was never taken care of this well. The massage therapy alone is over the top!” —David S .
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