How to Walk with Osteoarthritis of the Knee (Gait Modification Options)

How to walk with knee arthritis, or prevent it in the first place. Extended video with gait training exercise included. Knee arthritis is a painful condition affecting many older adults. It frequently leads to knee replacement surgery. One of the major causes of osteoarthritis of the knee is wear and tear from excessive stresses placed on the joint. Since most people with arthritis never had an injury, this excessive stress is likely to come from everyday walking. Many people walk in ways that cause abnormal stress on the knee joint, especially the medial, or inside, portion of the joint. I believe that proper walking technique can prevent knee arthritis, otherwise every older person would have it, but they don't. We can fix the way we walk and reduce our risk.

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Many studies are being done to assess whether different gait (walking) modifications can reduce the stress on the inside of the joint caused by the Knee Adductor Moment (KAM). The KAM is the force of inward rotation of the tibia on the femur that occurs after the foot impacts the ground. Higher KAM leads to increased knee pain and more rapid advancement of knee arthritis. One gait modification being studied is turning the feet out, or what we know as Duck-Foot walking. Turning the feet in, or In-Toeing is also being studied. Duck-foot walking is generally seen as unhealthy, so could this possibly be helpful for people with knee arthritis? The studies do indicate reduced KAM during early stance with people with knee arthritis, but in my personal opinion it is because they were not walking correctly in the first place. Walking with Duck-Feet may be a less-bad option than what there were doing before.

In this video I show my recommendation for how to walk with the feet facing forward with low impact and KAM. We do this by using the lower abs correctly. The lower abs help to move the knee out as the weight is transferred. This will reduce the stress on the knee joint. This should reduce knee pain with walking. Learning to use the core properly is probably harder than telling someone to just turn the feet out, but for people who are willing to work at something, I think this is a good approach. More importantly, this is the way to learn to walk BEFORE you get knee arthritis because once your knee is worn out and the structure changes, it may be impossible to walk normally. So, practice the exercises in this video to help you walk properly before you develop knee problems.

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Visit my website: https://www.movementsphere.com/todd-martin-md
Video Coaching now Available: Personalized coaching available with Dr. Martin. Click on the link here or in the video for details.
https://www.movementsphere.com/the-walking-code-video-coaching

Join this channel to get access to perks:
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