Find Relief from Osteoarthritis Pain
Find Relief from Osteoarthritis Pain
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.
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. Osteoarthritis is caused by the 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 PerformaX Elite offers several tools and techniques to help you manage your symptoms — often enough that you can delay or even avoid surgical interventions.
If you’re tired of living with osteoarthritis pain, call us to schedule an appointment today!
Please join us in wishing a Happy Birthday to 2 of our teammates – Nicole and Jason!
Our Patients Get Great Results
“I had never needed physical therapy before, and when I tore 3 ligaments in my ankle I was at a loss of where to begin searching for one. I’m so glad I found Performax and, more importantly, worked with Justin over the course of a year to regain my strength and mobility. Justin is immensely kind and answered all of my dumb and repetitive questions with positivity. He made sure to explain the benefits of each exercise and how it would improve my specific injury. Even on our first visit he was able to pull up a diagram of the ankle’s bones and ligaments to better explain my injury and why related muscles up my calf would be affected. To say I would recommend his care would be an understatement, he’s outstanding and if I ever need a PT again I will look to him first! The rest of the office staff were also welcoming, I love that they have a tradition of ringing a bell when clients reach a PT milestone. Overall – can’t recommend enough!” – K.P.
What Is InBody Testing?
No Estimations. Exact Results.
- Only impedance is used to determine your body composition results; no statistical data or empirical equations are used or required to predict your body composition.
- Measure your fat, muscle, and water levels in less than a minute. No dunking. No pinching. No discomfort. Simply stand on the device and hold the hand electrodes to test.
- Non-invasive and pain-free testing
Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis
Safe, low-level currents are sent through the body through the hand and foot electrodes. The impedance the currents encounter are measured, and from there, your body composition is derived. With InBody’s patented technology, BIA has never been more highly correlated with gold standard methods until now.
Each InBody Test will print out a full-page results sheet detailing the muscle, fat, and water values of the user. The InBody scan provides you with lean mass and fat values in each segment of the body to give you a proper assessment of body composition.
Segmental Fat And Lean Mass Analysis
Identify how many pounds of lean mass and fat are in each body segment. This can be utilized to determine how specific diets and exercises are affecting the body composition.
Injury Identification
You can identify and track inflammation, swelling, and even injuries with ECW/TBW Analysis while monitoring how this ratio changes over time under the Body Composition History chart. Call us today to schedule your assessment!
Understanding Osteoarthritis: Symptoms and Causes
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
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.
- 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 PerformaX Elite 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!
Refer A Friend & Get A $25 Gift Card!
Do you know someone who could benefit from physical therapy? Tell them about PerformaX and if they become a patient, we’ll send you a $25 Visa Gift Card! It pays to refer friends and family to PerformaX!
What is the TPI Golf Assessment?
Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) has created a golf assessment to screen for physical mobility or stability deficiencies that may negatively impact your game. Identifying key areas of weakness or inflexibility “timely” enough, will give us time to provide you with a program to correct the defaults, improve your game and prevent the injuries that result from these imbalances and compensations.
What Happens During a PMX® TPI Assessment?
The Assessment will take up to an hour. Following a brief health screening, we’ll begin the physical test. Come dressed comfortably and ready to participate. You will be led through a series of fitness movements that are key components of the golf swing. We’ll go over your results with you to assure that you have an understanding of how your findings might be impacting your golf performance.
Is it Right for Me?
A PMX TPI Assessment is not just for those who have been previously injured or know that they have a physical limitation. To schedule an appointment in the PMX Golf studio with one of our pros, call us today.
Recipe of the Month: Honey-Lime Chicken and Veggies
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger
- 2 tablespoons honey
- Zest of 1 lime
- Four 6-ounce chicken breasts
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 bunch asparagus
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 ears corn, halved
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- ¼ cup thinly sliced green onion
Instructions:
- In a small bowl, stir together the butter, olive oil, garlic, ginger, honey and lime zest.
- Using 12-inch sheets of foil, build four packets. Place a chicken breast in the center of each. Season it with cumin and paprika. Divide the asparagus among the packets. Brush the chicken and asparagus with the honey-ginger sauce and season with salt and pepper. Fold the foil over the food inside and crimp several times to seal.
- Preheat a grill or grill pan over medium-high heat. Grill the packets until the chicken is cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes.
- About 5 minutes before the chicken is finished, add the corn to the grill and cook until it’s browned on all sides, about 5 minutes.
- Garnish the chicken with cilantro and green onion before serving.
3 Simple Movements to Help Alleviate OA Pain
If you have osteoarthritis, it’s important to stay active to help keep your joints healthy. While our physical therapists can help you develop a suitable exercise program, you can also incorporate movement in small ways throughout the day.
These simple exercises will help mobilize your joints, and you can easily do them at home. Of course, check with your PT before starting anything new!
- Ankle Circles: While sitting in a chair, stretch your feet out in front of you, keeping them neutral (neither pointed or flexed). Gently tilt both feet in one direction, then repeat in the other.
- Knee Raises: Sit on the edge of your chair with your back straight and your feet planted on the floor. Slowly lift your knee as high as possible without bending your back, guiding it up with your hands if necessary. Then, making sure to keep your core tight, gently lower your foot back to the floor. Repeat on the other side.
- Overhead Shoulder Stretches: You can do this exercise sitting or standing. Hold your arms at your side, your elbows bent at a 90-degree angle and your thumbs pointed toward your shoulders. Then, stretch your arms straight overhead and slowly lower back down. If lifting both arms is too difficult, lift them one at a time. You can guide your arm up under the elbow if necessary.
Looking for more simple arthritis stretches? Call PerformaX Elite for an appointment today!
Sources
- https://www.purewow.com/recipes/honey-lime-chicken-in-foil
- https://www.choosept.com/guide/physical-therapy-guide-osteoarthritis,
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/osteoarthritis,
- https://www.arthritis.org/health-wellness/healthy-living/physical-activity/getting-started/benefits-of-exercise-for-osteoarthritis
- https://arthritis.ca/living-well/2020/top-10-arthritis-exercises
