Nearly one in four adults over 40 lives with painful osteoarthritis, a condition that can make everyday movement difficult and is one of the major causes of adult disability. The disease gradually wears down the cartilage that cushions joints. Once that damage occurs, doctors currently cannot reverse it. Treatment usually focuses on pain relief, with joint replacement becoming an option when symptoms become severe.
A clinical trial from researchers at the University of Utah, New York University, and Stanford University points to a different possibility: changing the way a person walks.
A Personalized Shift in Foot Angle
In the yearlong randomized controlled trial, people with knee osteoarthritis were trained to make a small, personalized change in the angle of their foot while walking. The result was striking. Participants who received the real gait retraining reported pain relief comparable to medication, and MRI scans suggested they had less knee cartilage deterioration than people in the placebo group.
The study, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, was co led by Scott Uhlrich of the University of Utah's John and Marcia Price College of Engineering. According to the researchers, it was the first placebo controlled study to show that a biomechanical intervention could help treat osteoarthritis symptoms and potentially slow joint damage.
