Rheumatology Round-Up: New Guidelines for Runner's Knee Treatment, the Benefit of Acupressure, and More.

Here are the top stories covered by DocWire News this week in the Rheumatology section: In this week’s edition of the round-up: a University of Montana professor authored a paper that provides new guidelines for treating runner’s knee, the EULAR developed updated recommendations for vaccinating adults with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases, and a new study shows that self-administered acupressure can alleviate back pain.

Runner’s Knee Guidelines

An assistant professor at the University of Montana (UM), Richard Willy, authored a paper that provides new guidelines for treating patellofemoral pain (PFP), more commonly known as “runner’s knee.” The guidelines state:

• An exercise program that gradually increases activities such as running, exercise classes, sports or walking, is the best way to prevent PFP.
• Adolescent athletes who specialize in a single sport are at 28% greater risk of PFP than athletes who participate in a variety of sports.
• An important way to reduce the risk of PFP in military populations is maximizing leg strength, particularly the thigh muscles.
• Pain does not always mean there is damage to the knee.

“While it might be tempting to seek quick fixes for knee pain, there is no evidence that non-active treatments alone, such as electrical stimulation, lumbar manipulations, ultrasound or dry needling, help persons with PFP,” said Prof.

Recommendations for Vaccinating for Rheumatic Diseases

The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) provided a 2019 update to their recommendations for vaccinating adults with autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIIRD). A task force comprising 21 experts including patients, rheumatologists, immunologists, and an infectious disease specialist from eight countries developed a list of six overarching principles and nine recommendations pertaining to the following: the incidence/prevalence of vaccine-preventable infections among patients with AIIRD, efficacy, immunogenicity and safety of vaccines, effect of anti-rheumatic drugs on the response to vaccines, effect of vaccination of household of AIIRDs patients.

The Benefit of Acupressure

The use of acupressure can alleviate lower back pain symptoms, according to a recent study published in Pain Medicine. In this pilot trial study, 67 patients were randomized into a six-week regimen of either relaxing acupressure, stimulating acupressure, or usual care. According to intent-to-treat analysis using lineal models, the researchers observed positive improvement in pain in the two acupuncture groups (by 35-36%) juxtaposed to the usual care group. One of the study authors said: “Compared to the usual care group, we found that people who performed stimulating acupressure experienced pain and fatigue improvement and those that performed relaxing acupressure felt their pain had improved after six weeks.”