Are you one of the 27 million Americans who suffer from knee osteoarthritis?
If you are, you know how painful and debilitating this ailment can be. However, do you know what causes it or how to treat it? Kurk Stork, PT, and author of the online feature article Aquatic Therapy after Knee Replacement posted on March 27, 2012 of Advance for Long-Term Care Management has detailed the common causes and treatments to help you improve your outlook on living with knee osteoarthritis.
The Causes
- Increased joint trauma from athletic experiences
- Joint trauma from working
- Obesity
The Effect
Knee Osteoarthritis.
This condition is most common with the aging “Baby Boomer” population due to the factors listed above. Obesity is the primary cause for this condition with a study showing “that people with a BMI of 30 or greater were at seven times more risk for developing knee osteoarthritis compared to those with a BMI of 25 or less.”
The Solution
Knee Replacement surgery.
This may seem a bit daunting, but knee osteoarthritis is very painful to live with. It limits an individuals’ ability to hold their job, participate in recreational activities and perform activities of daily living. Therefore, with new technology and terrific post-surgery therapy techniques, knee replacement surgery seems like the right thing to do.
The Next Steps
The benefits for using aquatic therapy for injuries, especially post-surgery are continuing to increase. According to Stork, “Aquatic therapy allows patients to use the healing properties of water in an effort to reduce pain, increase range of motion, improve strength, control edema and promote improved functional activity tolerance and endurance.”
Using fitness therapy pools with an adjustable-depth underwater treadmill, high-definition cameras with video feedback and resistance/massage jets for patients increases the quality of their physical therapy, as well as speeds-up the recovery process.
“Aquatic therapy with an underwater treadmill allows knee replacement patients to experience an earlier level of activity than if they had to wait until they could bear their weight on land.”
The Hope.
Knee Osteoarthritis is a condition that not only affects a person physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. Dealing with this on a daily basis is a painful process.
But there is hope!
Aquatic therapy for knee-replacement patients reduces their anxiety, improves their body image as well as gives hope of a full recovery.
The patient’s testimonies speak for themselves:
“I was so excited to walk on the treadmill without a walker in the pool. It made me realize that I was on my way to a full recovery.”
“I weigh 230 pounds and was scared of putting weight on my knee joint. By
getting into the pool in aquatic therapy and not having as much weight on my leg, I was able to trust the joint, making my therapy experience much easier because I wasn’t afraid.”
Kurt Stork is director of rehabilitation services at Four States Physical Therapy & Aquatic Rehabilitation. To read the full article, click here!
Happy National Athletic Training Month!
The following post comes from the article Therapy Pool Design Considerations from the March 2012 issue of Training and Conditioning magazine.
Over the last decade, the University of Kansas has upgraded its athletic training facilities to include top of the line aquatic training tools. The Jayhawks’ main athletic training room where the Olympic sports teams work out, its football facility, and its men’s and women’s basketball facilities all have HydroWorx pools to help athletes remain at the top of their game.
The school already had the HydroWorx 1200, a 6’ by 9’6’’ therapy pool with a moveable floor, which can function as a treadmill. It also had several PolarPlunges, smaller pools in which a chiller keeps the water temperature at 50 degrees to aid in muscle recovery, and a ThermalPlunge, which is a smaller heated pool, as options for athletes. However, in the collegiate facilities arms race, you can’t rest on your laurels. So four years ago, the school added the HydroWorx 2000 to the football facility.
Athletic trainer, Murphy Grant and Kansas football player using HydroWorx Pool.
Like the 1200 model, the HydroWorx 2000 boasts a moveable floor and underwater treadmill. But it’s large enough to accommodate multiple athletes at once. The school has also added several Polar and ThermalPlunge pools in recent years.
“Aquatics is a major focal point of the rehab work we do here,” says Murphy Grant, MS, ATC, Head Athletic Trainer for Football at Kansas. “Our goal is to get all of our athletes healthy, and these pools are another medium in which we can do that. The versatility and applications of the HydroWorx products have been great. The 2000 Series has been especially useful because I can monitor a lot of guys at once, and easily progress all of them through as they get better.”
Additionally, Grant said the customer service from HydroWorx has been top-notch, which is critical for him.
“The quality of the product speaks for itself,” he says. “But their service sets them apart. If we had any questions, we could call and they were helpful. In athletics, you’re moving at a fast pace, and you need to be able to talk to someone right away who can help you.”
If you’re looking to add therapy pools to your facilities, it’s important not to get ahead of yourself, though. Before you decide what pools will work best for your athletes, take the time to think about facility design.
“Number one, you need to make sure you have enough space,” Grant says. “And it’s not just the pools themselves you need to consider. Chillers, which will keep the pools cold, often take up a lot of space.
“Sometimes, you can get landlocked,” Grant continues. “You may want something, and the athletic department may want it, but you have to be able to give up the space in your athletic training room. Especially if you’re not building a new facility, you need to plan well because everything is getting bigger it seems, and space is at a premium.”
But regardless of who’s involved, Grant says everyone should have input on what works best for the facility. “These additions can be pushed by the athletic trainer, but the administration will have a role, as will your facilities staff,” he says. “That’s why it’s so critical to plan ahead.”
And the success of HydroWorx Clients continues.
This past weekend the NCAA Division 1 Wrestling Finals were held at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, MO. There were three different HydroWorx Universities with national champions, one school having 3 individual champions!
The List of HydroWorx Champions include:
125-pound Iowa wrestler Matt McDonough won his second national title with a 4-1 victory over his opponent.
133-pounder Logan Stieber from Ohio State University takes the title with a 4-3 victory over his competitor.
Penn State University, another loyal HydroWorx user left the Scottrade Center Saturday night with three individual nation champions.
HydroWorx Pool at Penn State University
The first champion for the Nittany Lions was Molinaro, a 149-pound wrestler, who won 4-1 to take the title. Molinaro completed his season with a perfect 33-0 record!
The second was the 165-pounder David Taylor who literally ‘dominated’ in his match. The wrestler received the NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler award due to his outstanding performance in his final match. Taylor had a 23-7 technical fall win, with 4 pins over Lehigh’s Brandon Hatchett. Taylor had a perfect season with the record of 32-0, making his two-season record, 70-1. Very impressive Taylor! Congratulations!
The third and final champion for PSU was 174-pounder Ed Ruth. Ruth won his final match 13-2 against his opponent. Again, another dominating performance by a Penn State wrestler. Ruth also completed his season with a perfect record of 31-0.
Needless to say, the Penn State Lions took the National Championship title for the second straight year with 3 individual champions with perfect records!
Congratulations to our HydroWorx champions as well as all to all the finalists in the tournament!
Weis explains: “Instead of just grinding on players all the time, I’m picking my spots,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is eventually it goes in one ear and out the other when you just hammer them all the time. So I’m more selective — and trust me, when I do get on them, it has a much greater impact.”
HydroWorx 2000 Series Pool at KU
As Greenberg relays, “Weis has been walking for an hour on an underwater treadmill at least four times a week in Lawrence — he calls the ability to exercise “uplifting.” In all, he’s happier these days than he was while his joints were a mess.”
The following blog post has been adapted from the article “A Bond Born at Speed” written by Tim Layden in the February 27, 2012 Sports Illustrated Issue
Mo Farah and Galen Rupp.
Both runners, both dedicated and both on the hunt for an Olympic gold medal.
Mo Farah, born and raised in Somalia, is running both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the London games in hopes of giving Great Britain its first real gold medal in track and field. Farah’s training partner, the 25 year old from Oregon, Galen Rupp, will be running for USA with the same goal.
Farah and Rupp have been diligently training under the former marathon record holder, Alberto Salazar, in Oregon. Rupp has been running for Salazar since he was in high school, recently becoming the American Two-Mile record holder. It wasn’t until January of 2011 that Mo Farah joined them at the Oregon Project facilities in Portland.
“I was leery,” says Rupp, 25, of the idea. “I think we’ve got the best training program in the world, with Alberto’s coaching and Nike’s resources. And now we’re adding one of our chief competitors. I said to Alberto, ‘Why are we bringing this guy in?’”
After a long talk with Salazar discussing numbers and the training benefits, it was decided that, “Rupp needed a consistent and talented training partner in his own events.”
What is more surprising, the two competitors have become close friends, working to make each other better. “We just clicked,” says Farah, 28.
Both runners have very specific and intense training schedules, all created by Salazar. For instance, Salazar is going to bump up their workouts in the final months before heading to London, increasing Farah’s mileage to ‘125 per week, with another 20 on a HydroWorx underwater treadmill, adding volume while minimizing injury risk.’
To read more about the personal trials, training regimes and goals for the two Olympic hopefuls read more from the article or pick up the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.
Salazar, a passionate HydroWorx customer, heavily incorporates the HydroWorx fitness pools into both Mo and Galen’s training regime because great benefits of aquatic therapy. The two runners use the pool as well as the X80 portable underwater treadmill while traveling on the road. The HydroWorx pools and underwater treadmill allow the runners to recover properly by ‘taking the weight off’ as they run and through the use of the deep tissue HydroMassage.
Take a look at some short videos of the two HydroWorx users!
Behind the Scenes Training: Olympian Galen Rupp on the HydroWorx:
An Inside Look into The Oregon Project Team Training Camp:
Nick Berra, an avid user and HydroWorx sponsored Masters Runner posts about his recent accomplishments– placing 1st for the Men’s 800 Meter Masters Division race at the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships 2012.
Berra is no stranger to the underwater treadmill as he frequently blogs about his training tactics both on land and in the water. His intense training routine certainly paid off this week in Albuquerque.
Watch Nick take the lead and finish on top with this video (He starts in lane 2!).
You can also catch his recap of the race in this post-race interview. Congrats Nick!!
Maintaining proper water chemistry is the best way to ensure that your aquatic therapy pool is operating in optimal condition and safe for your patients and athletes. HydroWorx Service Technician, Shawn Bowman, demonstrates a basic water chemistry test that you can perform in your own HydroWorx Pool. Monitoring the water levels in your therapy & fitness pool is very important in order to maintain a safe and healthy aquatic therapy environment for you and your patients or athletes.
One of the ways to check your water chemistry is to use a Taylor Test Kit, which Shawn uses in the video, because it delivers the most accurate results.
The three tests that you want to perform are:
1. An Alkalinity Test
- The goal for this test is to be somewhere between 80-120.
2. A PH test
- The goal for your PH test is to be somewhere between the 7.2 to 7.6 range.
- If you are lower than 7.2 then be sure to add a ‘PH increaser’ and if you are higher than 7.6 then add ‘PH decreaser.’
3. A Sanitation test using chlorine shock, which Shawn explains in this video!
To gain a better understanding on maintaining the water chemistry in your HydroWorx pool, please watch this video:
from our FREE Video Library. If you have further questions or queries regarding HydroWorx Fitness Pools you can reach us at 800-753-9633.
