A Small Change In Your Stride Can Ease Knee Arthritis Pain

Follow Drugslib on

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Drugs.com

via HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13, 2025 — Slightly altering your stride while walking could considerably ease pain caused by wear-and-tear knee arthritis, a new study says.

Foot positioning while walking can reduce stress on a person’s knee joint, researchers reported Aug. 12 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 aching knees, results show.

They also reported greater reductions in knee pain and better knee function after a year, researchers said.

“Altogether, our findings suggest that helping patients find their best foot angle to reduce stress on their knees may offer an easy and fairly inexpensive way to address early-stage osteoarthritis,” said co-lead researcher Valentina Mazzoli, an assistant professor of radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.

This strategy could lower patients’ reliance on painkillers and delay the need for knee replacement surgery, Mazzoli added in a news release.

For the study, researchers recruited 68 people with knee osteoarthritis and recorded their gait while walking on a treadmill. A computer program simulated their walking patterns and calculated the maximum stress they were placing on their knees.

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

Participants then were randomly divided into two groups. Half were trained in six sessions to walk with the foot angle ideal to them, and the other half were told to continue walking normally.

Overall, those who adjusted their gait reduced maximum loading in their knees by 4%, while those who kept their normal stride increased loading by more than 3%.

Further, those taught the new foot position experienced a 2.5-point reduction on a 10-point pain scale, equivalent to the effect of over-the-counter painkillers like NSAIDs and acetaminophen, researchers said.

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

AI software that estimates joint loading using smartphone videos is now available, allowing doctors to perform a gait analysis without specialized lab equipment, researchers noted.

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

Sources

  • NYU Langone Health, news release, Aug. 12, 2025

    • Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

    Source: HealthDay

    Posted : 2025-08-14 00:00

    Read more

    Disclaimer

    Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided by Drugslib.com is accurate, up-to-date, and complete, but no guarantee is made to that effect. Drug information contained herein may be time sensitive. Drugslib.com information has been compiled for use by healthcare practitioners and consumers in the United States and therefore Drugslib.com does not warrant that uses outside of the United States are appropriate, unless specifically indicated otherwise. Drugslib.com's drug information does not endorse drugs, diagnose patients or recommend therapy. Drugslib.com's drug information is an informational resource designed to assist licensed healthcare practitioners in caring for their patients and/or to serve consumers viewing this service as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, the expertise, skill, knowledge and judgment of healthcare practitioners.

    The absence of a warning for a given drug or drug combination in no way should be construed to indicate that the drug or drug combination is safe, effective or appropriate for any given patient. Drugslib.com does not assume any responsibility for any aspect of healthcare administered with the aid of information Drugslib.com provides. The information contained herein is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, warnings, drug interactions, allergic reactions, or adverse effects. If you have questions about the drugs you are taking, check with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.

    Popular Keywords