Yoga Found as Effective as Strengthening Exercises for Knee Osteoarthritis

Strengthening exercises have been shown to reduce knee pain, while yoga has demonstrated benefits for certain pain-related conditions. However, direct comparisons between the effectiveness of these two exercise approaches remain scarce. To explore this further, a study compared the effects of yoga and strengthening exercises on knee pain reduction in 117 individuals (mean age: 62.5 years) with knee osteoarthritis and baseline knee pain scores of 40 or higher on a 100-mm visual analog scale (VAS). The study found that both yoga and strengthening exercises significantly improved VAS pain scores over 12 weeks (-17.7 mm vs.

-16.7 mm). Notably, yoga was found to be noninferior to strengthening exercises in improving knee symptoms, depression, and quality of life. Moreover, over 24 weeks, yoga resulted in moderately greater improvements in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities…