Lower Osteoarthritis Pain by Walking Without Shoes

cindy — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:00:34 +0000

When we walk there is a mechanical loading of the knee joints which causes Osteoarthritis (OA) to slowly progress. Customized footwear and orthotics have been developed to reduce the symptoms of OA. However, before Shakoor et al, it had not been systematically studied how wearing or not wearing footwear will effect dynamic knee loading. Shakoor et al taken patients with OA and examined them while they walked barefoot and compared their results with patients wearing normal footwear.

With the use of opto-electric cameras and multi-component force plates, these researchers studied how men and women with medical joint knee OA walked barefoot opposed to wearing normal shoes. The results were fascinating, because of the 65 subjects (51 female and 14 male) with the average age being 58 all of them showed a reduction in hip, knee OA, adduction moments, hip internal rotation, and hip external rotation were all decreased drastically while they were walking with out shoes.

At the end of this study, it was concluded that barefoot walking is associated with the overall decreased dynamic knee loading. This means that patients with OA should really consider walking with out shoes whenever they are able to. This will definitely help with their knee symptoms.

Without a doubt this is an amazing and interesting project, which will shine some light on further research. With out any doubt, there can also be more research done so that we can better understand the relationship between mechanical joint loading under regular physiological conditions and to those of developing and the progression of knee Osteoarthritis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis - Symptom relief and resources » Lower Osteoarthritis Pain

Lower Osteoarthritis Pain by Walking Without Shoes