Knee Osteoarthritis:

Yoga May Offer Pain Relief, Improve Physical Function

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Research shows that yoga may offer relief from

st

symptoms associated with knee osteoarthritis.

Guille Faingold/Stocksy
A new study found that online yoga improved physical

function in people with knee osteoarthritis.
 Results showed that the benefits of online yoga, including
relief from knee pain, decreased after the 12-week
program, as did participation in the activity.
 Still, other studies have shown that a regular yoga
practice may offer relief from knee osteoarthritis.
New research has found that people with knee osteoarthritis who
took a 12-week online yoga program saw improvements in their
physical function — at least while they were doing the course.

However, the benefits of yoga, along with people’s participation in

the online classes, dwindled in the weeks following the end of the
program. The results were published on September 19 in the
journal, Annals of Internal Medicine.
 Knee Osteoarthritis:
Yoga May Offer Pain Relief, Improve Physical Function

While the current study shows that subjects who participated in the
online yoga program didn’t see an improvement in their pain
symptoms, other studies have seen positive results.

According to Maryland-based yoga therapist Pamela Stokes

Eggleston, founder of Yoga2Sleep, yoga is “definitely helpful” for
knee osteoarthritis. It can increase mobility and reduce the pain,
she added, which in turn, can decrease the need to take pain
medication.

Eggleston said she knows this not just as a yoga therapist, but as
someone with knee osteoarthritis.

While some people with knee osteoarthritis can have pain severe
enough to limit their daily activities, she told Healthline that when
her symptoms first appeared, “the pain was not debilitating, but it
hurt enough for me to get x-rays and an MRI.”

For her, there was no question of finding some relief from yoga. “It’s
about what ‘medicine’ from yoga can I use to help me better?” she
said.

Benefits of exercise for knee

osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis of the knee occurs when the cartilage in the knee
joint breaks down, allowing the bones to rub together. This can
cause pain and other symptoms.

This condition occurs more commonly in people 50 years of age and

older, although younger people can also develop it.

In people with knee osteoarthritis, the muscles supporting the joint

may be weak, which can lead to balance problems and an
increased risk of fallsTrusted Source.
 Knee Osteoarthritis:
Yoga May Offer Pain Relief, Improve Physical Function

Because of this and other health risks related to inactivity, exercise

is recommended for people with knee osteoarthritis to decrease
their pain, improve their physical function and boost their quality of
life.

Regular physical activity can also help people maintain a healthy

weight — carrying extra body weight can add stress to the knees
and increase inflammation in the joint.

In particular, low impact activities such as walking, cycling, and

yoga can help people stay active while being gentler on the knees
than higher-impact activities such as running.

When Eggleston first developed knee osteoarthritis, she said

walking became, and remains, her “go-to” cardiovascular activity.
She also does a daily yoga practice and uses a rebounder, or mini-
trampoline — “any low impact activity that is going to get my heart
rate up,” she said.

In addition, she said she eats a largely plant-based diet and limits

her intake of added sugars to maintain a healthy weight and reduce
inflammation in her body. But any healthy balanced diet should
still be balanced with a regular exercise regimen.

Online yoga for knee arthritis

Earlier research supports the use of yoga for knee osteoarthritis,
showing that it may improve pain, physical function, and joint
stiffness. However, none of these prior studies looked specifically at
online yoga programs for people with this condition, until now.

The new study involved 212 people with knee osteoarthritis. All
participants had access to online information about osteoarthritis,
treatment options, and the benefits of physical activity, weight loss,
and healthy sleep habits.

Researchers randomly assigned around half of the people to do a

12-week self-paced online yoga program.
 Knee Osteoarthritis:
Yoga May Offer Pain Relief, Improve Physical Function

The program consisted of a series of 12 pre-recorded 30-minute

videos. People were asked to do one video a week, three times
during the week.

The classes included a slow-paced mix of static and dynamic yoga

poses designed to stretch and strengthen the muscles of the core
and legs.

Instructors also offered different modifications and levels of the

poses, so people could adapt the program to suit their personal
needs and abilities.

However, the classes focused on physical postures but didn’t

include other aspects of yoga, such as deep relaxation, chanting,
and meditation, which could also help reduce pain.

Physical function improved with

yoga
After 12 weeks, subjects who did the yoga classes saw greater
improvements on average in their physical function, knee stiffness,
and quality of life, compared to those who only had access to online
osteoarthritis education.

Still, there was only a small difference between the two groups in
the level of knee pain while walking at 12 weeks.

After the program ended, researchers followed up with participants

another 12 weeks later. By then, both groups had similar levels of
physical function, pain, knee stiffness, and quality of life.

This loss of benefits seen in the yoga group may be because many
people stopped doing the yoga classes after the 12-week program
ended.

During the last week of the course, over two-thirds of participants

completed at least two classes a week. By the end of the follow-up
 Knee Osteoarthritis:
Yoga May Offer Pain Relief, Improve Physical Function

period, though, fewer than one-third were still doing the online yoga
program regularly.

“Not all participants were adherent [to the yoga program], which
may have attenuated detection of any true benefits of yoga,” the
authors wrote in the paper.

Other factors may have also made it difficult to determine the true
benefits of yoga for knee osteoarthritis.

For example, the authors note that “because the yoga program was
unsupervised, we do not know whether the yoga elements were
performed correctly or completely.”