Slightly altering your stride relieves arthritis pain, study finds

NEW YORK (HealthDay News)—Slightly altering your stride while walking may significantly ease the pain caused by wear-and-tear arthritis of the knee, a new study suggests.

Foot position while walking can reduce stress on a person's knee joint, researchers reported in The Lancet Rheumatology.

People trained to angle their feet slightly inward or outward from their natural alignment experienced slower degeneration of the cartilage cushion inside their painful knees.

There were also greater reductions in knee pain and improved knee function after one year.

“Taken together, our findings suggest that helping patients find the best foot angle to reduce stress on their knees may be an easy and relatively inexpensive way to address early-stage osteoarthritis,” said co-principal investigator Valentina Mazzoli, an assistant professor of radiology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

This strategy would reduce patients' dependence on painkillers and delay the need for knee replacement surgery, Mazzoli added.

The study recruited 68 people with knee osteoarthritis and recorded their gait as they walked on a treadmill. A computer program simulated their walking patterns and calculated the maximum stress they were exerting on their knees.

The research team generated computer models of four new foot positions, angled inward or outward by 5 or 10 degrees, and calculated which would best reduce stress on each person's knees.

The participants were then randomly divided into two groups. Half were trained over six sessions to walk with their ideal foot angle, while the other half were instructed to continue walking normally.

Overall, people who adjusted their gait reduced the maximum load on their knees by 4%, while those who maintained their usual stride increased the load by more than 3%.

Those who learned the new foot position experienced a 2.5-point reduction on a 10-point pain scale, equivalent to the effect of over-the-counter pain relievers such as NSAIDs and acetaminophen.

“These results highlight the importance of personalizing treatment rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to osteoarthritis,” Mazzoli said. “While this strategy may seem challenging, recent advances in detecting the movement of different body parts using artificial intelligence can make it easier and faster than ever.”

AI software that calculates joint loading using smartphone videos is now available, allowing physicians to perform gait analysis without specialized laboratory equipment.

The team plans to test whether these AI tools can help identify the best walking method for patients with knee arthritis, Mazzoli explained. They also plan to expand their study to include people with obesity.

At a glance

Personalization

In the stride study, people who learned to walk with a new foot position experienced a 2.5-point reduction on a 10-point pain scale. “These results highlight the importance of personalizing treatment rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to osteoarthritis,” said researcher Valentina Mazzoli.