![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Knee-pain-from-arthritis-by-Getty-Images-For-Unsplash-Zfi2Hb_qlaY.jpeg\")
Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+<\/p>\n Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+<\/p>\n
Scientists are reporting that a simple adjustment to how people walk can relieve knee arthritis pain as effectively as prescription drugs\u2014while also slowing the deterioration of cartilage.<\/p>\n
Nearly a quarter of people over the age of 40 experience painful osteoarthritis, due to degrading joint-cushioning cartilage\u2014and there is currently no way of reversing this damage. The only option is to manage pain with medication, and eventually, joint replacement.<\/p>\n
Now, researchers from the University of Utah, New York University, and Stanford are now demonstrating the potential for another option: gait retraining.<\/p>\n
By making a small adjustment to the angle of their foot while walking, participants in a year-long randomized control trial experienced pain relief equivalent to medication.<\/p>\n
Critically, those participants also showed less knee cartilage degradation over that period as compared to a group that received a placebo treatment.<\/p>\n
Published on August 13 in<\/a> The Lancet Rheumatology, these findings come from the first placebo-controlled study to demonstrate the effectiveness of a biomechanical intervention for osteoarthritis.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve known that for people with osteoarthritis, higher loads in their knee accelerate progression, and that changing the foot angle can reduce knee load,\u201d said Scott Uhlrich<\/a>, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Utah.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there have not been randomized, placebo-controlled studies to show that they\u2019re effective.\u201d<\/p>\n A personalized approach to gait retraining<\/p>\n With support from the National Institutes of Health, the researchers were specifically looking at patients with mild-to-moderate osteoarthritis in the medial compartment of the knee\u2014on the inside of the leg\u2014which tends to bear more weight than the lateral, outside, compartment.<\/p>\n This form of osteoarthritis is the most common, but the ideal foot angle for reducing load in the medial side of the knee differs from person to person, depending on their natural gait and how it changes when they adopt the new walking pattern.<\/p>\n \u201cPrevious trials prescribed the same intervention to all individuals, resulting in some individuals not reducing, or even increasing, their joint loading,\u201d Uhlrich said. \u201cWe used a personalized approach to selecting each individual\u2019s new walking pattern, which improved how much individuals could offload their knee and likely contributed to the positive effect on pain and cartilage that we saw.\u201d<\/p>\n In their first two visits, participants received a baseline MRI and practiced walking on a pressure-sensitive treadmill while motion-capture cameras recorded the mechanics of their gait. This allowed the researchers to determine whether turning the patient\u2019s toe inward or outward would reduce load more, and whether a 5-degree or 10-degree adjustment would be ideal.<\/p>\n After their initial intake sessions, half of the 68 participants were assigned to a sham treatment group to control for the placebo effect, prescribing foot angles that were actually identical to their natural gait.<\/p>\n After a year, all participants self-reported their experience of knee pain and had a second MRI to quantitatively assess the damage to their knee cartilage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reported decrease in pain over the placebo group was somewhere between what you\u2019d expect from an over-the-counter medication, like ibuprofen, and a narcotic like oxycontin,\u201d Uhlrich said. \u201cWith the MRIs, we also saw slower degradation of a marker of cartilage health in the intervention group, which was quite exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the quantitative measures of effectiveness, participants in the study expressed enthusiasm for both the approach and the results. One participant said, \u201cI don\u2019t have to take a drug or wear a device\u2026it\u2019s just a part of my body now that will be with me for the rest of my days, so that I\u2019m thrilled with.\u201d<\/p>\n Participants\u2019 ability to adhere to the intervention over long periods of time is one of its potential advantages.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially for people in their 30s, 40s or 50s, osteoarthritis could mean decades of pain management before they\u2019re recommended for a joint replacement,\u201d Uhrlich said. \u201cThis intervention could help fill that large treatment gap.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE ARTHRITIS BREAKTHROUGHS: How the study was conducted<\/p>\n Participants from both groups returned to the lab for six weekly training sessions, where they received biofeedback\u2014vibrations from a device worn on the shin\u2014that helped them maintain the prescribed foot angle while walking on the lab\u2019s treadmill. After the six-week training period, participants were encouraged to practice their new gait for at least 20 minutes a day, to the point where it became natural. Periodic check-in visits showed that participants were adhering to their prescribed foot angle within a degree on average.<\/p>\n However, the team explained that before this intervention can be clinically deployed, the gait retraining process will need to be streamlined, so it can be eventually prescribed in a physical therapy clinic, and retraining can happen while people go for a walk around their neighborhood.<\/p>\n Those interested in participating in future studies can contact Scott Uhlrich\u2019s Movement Bioengineering Lab<\/a> by filling out this web form<\/a>.<\/p>\n WALK THIS TIP FOR PAIN RELIEF Over to Friends on Social Media\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+ Scientists are reporting that a simple adjustment to how people walk can relieve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[41782,70871,97,686,1107,45433,1728,3324,15760],"class_list":["post-879592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-alternative-medicine","tag-arthritis","tag-health","tag-medicine","tag-pain","tag-prevention","tag-research","tag-utah","tag-walking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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