Exercise and arthritis of the hip

by Dr Norman Swan

Supervised exercise program can reduce pain in those with arthritis of the hip, research finds.

08 06 2009

Now it may seem to be the bleeding obvious that exercise is good if you've arthritis of the hip, but the evidence hasn't been that clear and one large trial suggested that it actually makes the pain worse.

That made researchers bring together the evidence from trials of strengthening and/or aerobic exercises in people with either hip arthritis alone or hip and knee arthritis.

What they found was that these kinds of exercises can be associated with reduced pain, but only in programs where there's someone who knows what they're doing – like a physiotherapist – supervising, and that there is at least one session a week for at least four weeks.

The trial, which found increased pain, just handed out instructional videos and a lot of participants didn't do the exercises.

The pain-relieving effect of the exercise was estimated to be somewhere between taking paracetamol and ibuprofen. So not magical, but certainly noticeable after a few weeks.