Is physical therapy often used to treat arthritis?

Physical therapy is employed often to treat arthritis.  Usually as a first step in combination with arthritis pill and home exercises, the goal of the physical therapy is first to help the patient improve the motion of the joint.  Many times, the stiffness that occurs in the joint from arthritis is a source of pain itself.  Even if the joint is arthritic, once the range of motion and flexibility of the joint is reestablished, the patient’s joint pain may diminish greatly.  So the first step with therapy is to reestablish as much motion as possible in the joint itself, as well as the surrounding joints.  And mechanically, this increased motion and flexibility may help the patient’s pain quite a bit.  The second step typically with physical therapy, is to strengthen the muscles around the joint.  It makes sense that there’s more force on the joint if the muscles are weak.  It will also help the patient improve their gait pattern to avoid certain patterns that may lead to more pain within the joint.  So, flexibility, range of motion, strengthening, gait pattern, all these things can be helped with therapy.  In addition, the therapist can teach the patient how to do a home program to continue these exercises on a routine basis through their whole life, to help self-treat their problem.  The home exercises may be just as important as the physical therapy, but it’s important to learn how to do those correctly so as to not create more problems.  So the therapy is helpful for the home treatment as well.  Lastly, the therapist can help educate the patient regarding self-care, regarding taking care of their joint, and also serve as a resource for the patient to see on a regular basis from time to time.