People with worse osteoarthritis pain benefit most from exercise

Higher pain levels and greater functional impairment in a person tends to mean they will gain more from exercise compared to those with milder pain and better function.

Data from over 30 trials involving more than 4,000 people provides “tentative evidence that not all people with osteoarthritis respond similarly to exercise,” highlights Dr Melanie Holden in The Lancet.

Compared with non-exercise control participants, those who exercise demonstrated improved pain and function in the short, medium and long term, according to the Dr Holden’s team. And people with higher self-reported pain and physical function at baseline demonstrated more benefit from exercise than people with lower pain and physical function.

“Therapeutic exercise had an overall positive effect on pain and physical function compared with non-exercise controls,” highlights Dr Holden in The Lancet. “Targeting individuals with higher levels of osteoarthritis-associated pain and disability for exercise therapy might therefore be of merit.”

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