Nathan J. Fanter, D.O.

Knee Arthritis? Walk It Off...

A recent study suggested that increased walking may be linked with reduced risk of functional limitation for patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). The research team evaluated the association of steps/day at baseline with the development of functional limitation 2 years later among 1,788 participants with a mean age of 67 years. They found that each additional 1,000 steps/day was associated with a 16 percent reduction in incident functional limitation by performance-based measures and an 18 percent reduction by self-reported measures. The research team noted that walking at least 6,000 steps/day was the best threshold to distinguish incident functional limitation by performance-based measures.