In addition, long-term immobility negatively affects all bodily systems. Many support groups and management techniques exist to help persons cope with arthritis. However, for these persons, coping mechanisms are not the answer in their quest to improve the quality of their lives. One of the most important attitudinal advances in the last decade in the treatment of arthritis is that passive therapies are considered of limited use. While exercise programs proliferate, no standardized exercise parameters exist that ensure joint protection and healing.
Arthritis is a general term for many rheumatological diseases.
These harmful mechanical factors include bony malalignment and the loss of timely and appropriate muscular contractions that cushion joints in movement. Clients with arthritis are often unaware that they are moving in an injurious manner, demonstrating poor movement qualities. This person might go on to develop knee osteoarthritis with persistence of this injurious movement pattern. We can educate clients to identify and sense these injurious movements and to move with greater ease and support. This requires retraining their kinesthetic sense, that which allows them to feel how they are moving within their bodies and in the environment.