5 Effective Home Exercises for Seniors with Knee Osteoarthritis | Doc Cherry

For our beloved seniors who are currently suffering from knee pain and whose ability to movement has been affected, you need this video, especially if you want to avoid knee surgery or knee replacement. In this video, I will teach you five exercises that our seniors can easily do. follow at home. These will reduce your pain level while we make sure to prevent knee surgery, especially in mild to moderate cases of knee osteoarthritis. Stay with me until the end of this video because I will also let you comment in the comment section if what you're what we are currently doing at home to reduce pain intensity is correct or incorrect. This approach helps us prevent the worsening of your knee pain. Hi, this is again Doc Sherry, Doctor of Physical Therapy teaching practical health tips and home exercise programs that you can surely benefit from. This is a follow-up video based on the video we made last time about the three most effective joint supplements that can help our seniors with muscle and joint pain. And since I have read from The comment section where most of you are bothered by your knee pain—this is something that can greatly help you. We have multiple treatment options for as much as knee osteoarthritis is concerned and the most common cause of knee pain in seniors and in individuals aged 40 years and older above. And one of these may include injection or even rehabilitation. But keep in mind, it is based on the patient. experience, even for those who have undergone injection, the pain is more likely to return again after several months. And based on clinical trials and even based on patient experience, your two most viable options to truly reduce pain and permanently avoid knee replacement would come down to two: exercise therapy and load management, which I will elaborate on later. Now I want you to understand that the time you will dedicate to these exercises, They are never wasted. Because many clinical trials have actually proven that patients who With strengthening exercises, they can significantly experience a reduction in their pain scale. And many clinical studies have actually validated as well that patients who do both strengthening and neuromuscular exercises, which I will teach you and demonstrate later, have actually prevented knee surgery within a two-year period and even beyond. Now, for the first exercise, I want you to sit comfortably and scoot to the edge of the chair. I want you to straighten your knee like this. Now for some patients, this may be a trouble for them to do because their knees would hurt. But I want you to start at a range that is comfortable for you. Your ultimate goal is to straighten your knee like this. You need to do this 15 times and you need to repeat it on the other knee as well. In this exercise, we're directly working on your quadriceps muscle, the largest muscle in the front of your thigh, where your patella and knee joint attach For our second exercise, we're going to need a theraband. But don't worry if you don't have one. these yet. Just follow and mimic the exercise that I will show you because you would still be targeting the specific muscle group. Now we want to use this theraband and use it directly above your knee joint. Then I want you to move your knees outwards like this. Bring it back inward. Repeat it 15 times and do it on your opposite knee as well. If you have knee pain, It is actually incorrect that you only strengthen the muscles around your knee joint. Based on clinical Studies show that what is useful and beneficial for you is to strengthen your hip abductors as well. This exercise specifically targets your gluteus medius muscle and your hip abductors. which increases your stability. Now this is very important because do you know that knee buckling It is very common among those diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis and is a common cause of falls. With our third exercise, this is a functional exercise, and although it may look as easy as it seems, Many patients who suffer from knee pain actually have difficulty with this. This is sit to stand. exercises. Mind you, most patients who experience knee osteoarthritis have difficulty standing up from a seated position. You may find this difficult at first, but mind you, Patience makes perfect. To do this, I want you to sit comfortably and then scoot to the edge. of the chair. If your balance is being challenged or if you have difficulty with balance, What you can do is hold onto a chair or a table in front of you to help yourself. But if your balance is not challenged, I want you to cross your arms over your chest. and then from a seated position, you stand up. Your goal here is to control your descent. every time you sit down. Repeat this one 15 times. This exercise is really good because It is functional. It directly works on your thigh muscles as well as your pelvic muscles. as well as your balance and coordination. Before we proceed with our other two exercises, I would like to know if you experience difficulty rising from a seated position. Please share your thoughts. Yes current functional status, and so I can tailor future videos to better suit your needs. With our fourth exercise, this is called your hamstring curl, and I want you to kick like this. This directly works on your hamstring muscle, which is responsible for bending or flexing your leg at the knee. knee. Now mind you, most of the patients who are actually diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis have difficulty bending their knee. So this one is really helpful for you. You need this for functional activities such as going up and down stairs and even while walking. With our last exercise, this is called the step-up, and this is very important because it mimics functional activities such as going up and down stairs, which are extremely painful for those diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis. To do this, we're going to use your good leg first, the non-painful knee First. For example, if you have pain in your left knee, we start first with your right. foot, then followed by your left. Then when we go down, we use your left foot or your left knee First. So we have a rule for this. Good leg goes to heaven and bad leg goes to hell. Do this 15. time is up until you become proficient with this. This is the safest and most stable way to ensure that we prevent falls. These are the five easy functional and strengthening exercises that we have Dear seniors can easily do and follow at home to ensure we reduce the pain at the same time prevent knee surgery for good. I mentioned to you a while ago about the two best possible treatment options to reduce pain while simultaneously avoiding surgery, which we have already discussed Regarding exercise therapy, load management is extremely important. to lose weight if you think you're overweight, because do you know that your knees bear the weight bearing joints and even based on patient experience, even for those patients who have undergone total knee replacement, they are more likely to experience pain again every time they gain weight. If you have reached the end of this video, please comment down below what are you currently doing at home to help alleviate your knee pain. This way I can read and go through it and I can comment on whether what you're doing is correct or incorrect. This way, we prevent further deterioration of your situation. knee pain. Thank you very much for watching, and oh, before I go, it is very important for you to know about the recommended sleeping position if you have knee pain because there is what we call a knee flexion contracture which we want to avoid. Check out this video here—it will greatly help you. Thank you very much for watching, and we'll see you in our next video. God bless you!