Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

With the recent diagnosis of severe osteoarthritis in my right knee, I’m deploying regular Pilates practice, keeping my weight down and reducing inflammation as among the “levers” that I can pull to extract every last bit of mileage out of the original equipment. I hope to postpone replacing this knee for as long as possible. Knee replacement outcomes have improved over the past 10+ years Surgeries of all types are invasive. At minimum, recovering from anesthesia, particularly general anesthesia, often takes longer than expected. And then there’s the recovery from the surgery, itself, which depending on the location and type, can take weeks to months. I consider surgery a last-resort treatment for the vast majority of conditions. That being said, I will have my R-knee replaced at the appropriate time. The “appropriate time” varies from person to person. In my studio teaching, clients often ask my opinion about whether or not to pursue joint replacement. While there’s no objectively “ri...

Aging is many things, though at essence it's the experience of inflammation. Inflammation is a natural and necessary physiologic response to the stressors that occur throughout the lifespan. Unfortunately, our capacity to manage inflammation tends to decline as the years go by, and inflammation tends to increase along with chronological age. As a result, we tend to become less resilient to stressors of all kinds due to the inflammation that generally accompanies aging. Many scientists define resilience as "the rapidity in recovering from adverse events." In our youth, when we overdo a workout, we may feel tired and sore the next day. However, we generally bounce back from the soreness quite quickly and are back to full-capacity within a day or two. The recovery from the adverse event is rapid. With aging, on the other hand, a single overdoing episode may leave us feeling tired and sore for multiple days, if not longer. The recovery from adverse events is slow. Muscle sore...

  The forces on the knee are often more than 2-3 times your body weight . While walking, for example, a 150 pound person has 300-450 pounds of pressure on the knee joint. Thankfully, knees are designed to handle these loads, though high-mileage knees often hurt more when exposed to greater loads. For that reason, one of the front-line treatments for knee arthritis is weight loss . Weight loss can be a triggering subject for many, though reducing body weight by even 10-pounds can significantly reduce pressure on the knees. Every ounce counts when it comes to high-mileage knees. While I’ve generally been pretty lean over my life, my weight has fluctuated over the years. And like so many of us, the net trajectory of my body weight has been upward, particularly since entering midlife. When the orthopedist showed images of the “severe osteoarthritis” in my knee and suggested full knee-replacement as a treatment option, I took a hard look at my body weight. As we age, we all tend to los...