HEAT AND COLD FOR ARTHRITIS.

Report #6389 12/12/94

If people with arthritis don't exercise, their muscles weaken and their joints deteriorate further. If they do exercise, their joints hurt and they are often told that exercise can cause further joint damage.

The most recent research show that exercise helps to protect joints from further damage. Most people with arthritis don't exercise because they feel pain in their muscles and joints with every movement. Lack of exercise weakens muscles which allows extra motion around the joints that can chip already damaged cartilage away from bones. Exercise helps to strengthen muscles/ and stronger muscles help stabilize joints and keep them from wobbling and rubbing off additional cartilage. However, all exercises do not strengthen muscles. Exercise against increasing resistance strengthens muscles. Several recent reports show that controlled supervised weightlifting can help to strengthen muscles and protect joints from further damage.

Arthritis literally means pain in joints, but it causes muscles and tendons to hurt also. So, exercise can be extremely painful for many people who have this condition. Heat and cold can help to block pain, and heat or cold applied to the skin surface can lower or raise the temperature inside the joint. Cold can reduce swelling and prevent pain and when cold packs are applied to joints prior to exercise, they allow a person with arthritis to exercise with less pain and more benefit.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News