Rheumatoid knee osteoarthritis is a common clinical degenerative disease, especially in middle-aged and elderly patients. It not only causes pain, but also affects the function of the knee joint to a certain extent, especially in terms of painful walking up and down stairs and inconvenience in walking, and may even cause joint deformity and disability if the disease is allowed to develop. The conventional treatment for knee osteoarthritis is drug control and surgery. However, recent studies have shown that strength training and aerobic exercise can effectively improve the motor function of knee joints in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Therefore, in 2014, the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) recommended that patients with knee osteoarthritis engage in regular, structured exercise as a non-pharmacological treatment against this disease. Unfortunately, however, on the one hand, more than 2/3 of clinicians do not take their recommendations seriously, and on the other hand, the few patients who do follow their recommendations do not benefit from them because they fail to strictly implement or even simply abandon the systematic exercise regimen they recommend. Why is this the case? It is quite understandable that patients with knee discomfort have to work out for long periods of time and with a certain intensity. In addition, this disease tends to occur in middle-aged and elderly people who are not physically active and whose physical condition does not support such physical activity. Is there no other way out? Do patients have to take endless medication or even progress to the point of having to undergo surgery? Of course not. In a study published in Arthritis Care & Research, researchers concluded that patients with knee osteoarthritis can effectively avoid the physical limitations of arthritis by walking more than 3,000 steps a day – no more than required. They selected 1,788 patients and then used pedometers to count the number of steps walked per day for more than seven days and averaged them into daily walking volume, after which they were assessed for functional limitations of the knee (walking speed <1 m/s or WOMAC physical function score ≥28) at that time and two years later. Through these experiments, they found that 80% of the participants who did not develop walking speed limitations walked at least 5,300 steps per day. And they also calculated that the minimum number of steps that would prevent functional deterioration was between 3250 and 3700 steps. The additional benefit of walking a certain number of steps per day over the minimum number of steps was a 16-18% reduction in the probability of functional deterioration for each additional 1000 steps taken. Of course, the more steps you take, the better. Researchers recommend about 6,000 steps as the optimal number of steps, because this number of steps can best distinguish between patients who will progress to functional deterioration and those who will not, after which, on the one hand, the reduction in the rate of deterioration is not significant, and on the other hand, the patient's physical ability to tolerate. Let's go everyone! Because of this research, it is important to recognize that clinicians should change their mindset and try to encourage patients with knee osteoarthritis to walk daily. One study showed that 2/3 of American knee osteoarthritis patients walk less than 90 minutes per week, which translates to far less than even the minimum effective number of steps in the above study, which is obviously extremely detrimental to the patient's prognosis. Walking is not a strenuous activity, and insisting on 3,000 steps a day is only about 20 minutes of walking a distance of about 2,000 meters, and even if you slowly increase the number of steps, it is only the time it takes to go out and buy groceries and come back again, which has to be considered a great benefit without adding extra burden. Some studies suggest that 80% of people with knee osteoarthritis may progress to the point of functional limitation, and that 11% of adults with knee osteoarthritis may have to receive personal care because they have difficulty walking or even become disabled, which obviously has a serious impact on their quality of life and is undoubtedly a heavy financial burden. Therefore, why not prevent functional degeneration and avoid the factors that make life difficult by simply walking every day, without the need for strenuous physical activity?