Chronic knee pain eased with the help of Skype

Story highlights A program combining exercise and pain-coping skills is effective in decreasing knee pain, a study says Most participants stuck with the program and felt satisfied with the results CNN — Exercise, an online pain-coping skills program and Skype sessions with a physiotherapist helped relieve patients’ chronic knee pain, according to a study published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Speculating on why the program was so successful, Bennell noted that past studies have shown the positive effects of exercise and pain-coping skills separately, so “when the two treatments are combined, these benefits are most likely magnified.” According to Guy Eakin, senior vice president of scientific strategy at the Arthritis Foundation, the new study shows “the social benefit accountability to a physiotherapist actually can be delivered via Skype.” The study also demonstrates technologies that haven’t been available in prior years and might make a very meaningful difference in the course of a patient’s disease, said Eakin, who was not involved in the study. Probably not, but there will probably be a significant portion of the population who find having those calls with a physiotherapist is a really good motivator for staying involved,” said Eakin, pointing to the fact that the attrition rate over the course of the study “was actually pretty reasonable: They lost only 10% over a nine-month period.” Another positive point is the fact that the participants weren’t obese, but they weren’t slender either, Eakin said: “So that’s actually a remarkable achievement, to be able to offer an exercise intervention in a study that involves people of what would be in our community a pretty average BMI.” The inclusion of pain-coping skills was helpful as well. “It’s a vicious cycle.” Though most people think of osteoarthritis as a geriatric condition, “the fact of the matter is, younger people can also develop osteoarthritis, particularly from traumatic injuries,” he said, including sports injuries.