A big review of knee arthritis treatments put the cheapest one on top
A study came across my feed this week that I think is worth passing on. Researchers pooled 139 randomized trials with 9,644 people who have knee osteoarthritis, and compared 12 non-drug treatments against each other. It's published in PLOS One.
The treatments they looked at go from cheap and boring to expensive and high-tech. On the cheap end: knee braces, exercise, hydrotherapy, kinesio taping, wedged insoles. Then there's a whole stack of machine-based stuff, including high-intensity and low-level laser, TENS, interferential current, shortwave diathermy, ultrasound and shockwave therapy.
They measured three things: pain, physical function and stiffness. The ranking was fairly consistent across all three. The knee brace came first every time. Exercise and hydrotherapy were close behind. Ultrasound came last for both pain and function.
That's the bit I find useful. A brace is one of the cheapest options on the list. You can use it yourself, and it doesn't need a clinic appointment or someone to operate it. Several of the treatments that do need an appointment and a machine finished below it.
Some limits are worth mentioning. This is a network meta-analysis, so it's comparing trials that used different protocols on different patients, rather than testing everything head to head in one group. The quality of the individual trials varies. And it only covered non-drug, non-surgical options, so it doesn't tell you anything about painkillers or surgery.
Even so, if someone asked me what to try first for an arthritic knee, I'd now say a brace and moving more, before anything that plugs into a wall.
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260913082208.htm