Meniscal Tears A recently published research report has received attention this past week in US news outlets. The study, conducted in Finland and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was centered on a very common orthopedic condition: meniscal tears in the knee. This clinical trial took a sample of people diagnosed with meniscal tears, and randomly assigned them to either an arthroscopic surgery group or a sha...

QUICK TIPS ON NEW YEAR’S RESOULTION SUCCESS With the New Year right around the corner, many will soon flock to the gym in hopes of accomplishing (finally!) their health and fitness goals. To maximize the potential for success during this New Year’s resolution, some helpful tips are in order. 1.) Set REALISTIC goals – In order to avoid the primary pitfalls of most resolutions (ie quitting in early January, getting injured, etc.), one must set realistic goals. The key to a real...

Benefits of Exercise: Update A few weeks ago, a brief review of the health benefits of exercise was posted on the STAR Physical Therapy blog (see Exercise is Medicine from Nov 4, 2013). In the way of an update, a recent article was published in the British Medical Journal (Naci H, Ioannidis J, 2013) that sheds a different light on the relationship between exercise and health.  A team of researchers from the United Kingdom and the US set out to compare the effectiveness of exercise and dru...

    Stop Slouching! “Sit up straight!”—the compulsory words of every mother out there. Just like not forgetting your coat and mittens, your mom was right about this also. Believe it or not, posture plays a role in many common orthopedic problems, especially back and neck pain. By definition, posture is the body’s alignment and positioning with respect to gravity. No matter what position you are in, gravity is imparting a force on your joints, ligaments and...

Proactive Approaches to Treating Knee OA  Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint condition, and the knee is the most common joint afflicted with OA. Traditional medical approaches to treating knee OA include medication (Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs), injections, and surgery. The focus on early treatment is pain control. Yet, OA is a condition that represents mechanical breakdown of joints. This in turn is usually due to inability of joint structural elements to offset loadin...