Baduanjin – a form of Qigong – may reduce knee osteoarthritis

Baduanjin exercise, a common form of Chinese Qigong exercise that consists of eight movements of low intensity, may have favourable effects for people with knee arthritis, a team reports in Complementary Therapies in Medicine.

A group looked at the research that had been done and found that although the evidence isn’t of a great quality, there are some positive trends:

• People who took part in Baduanjin exercises found their levels of pain, stiffness and physical function improved compared to health education;
• Baduanjin exercises plus nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs reduced knee arthritis symptoms more than if people just took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

“Baduanjin exercise may have favourable effects for knee osteoarthritis patients,” the team concludes. “However, further rigorously designed randomised controlled trials are warranted before it can be recommended.”

For more information on qigong, click here for a review published in Arthritis Digest. 

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