Don?t want OA and a Knee Replacement? See a PT!

Don?t want OA and a Knee Replacement? See a PT!

Reference:Deyle GD et al 2000 Effectiveness of manual physivcal therapy and exercise in osteoarthritis of the knee. A randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine. Feb 1;132(3):173-81

83 men and women with knee pain & OA were randomly allocated into two groups.

Group 1: Manual therapy / mobilizations and specific exercises were provided by an experienced PT
Group 2: Placebo ultrasound given to the knee

All patients attended 2X/week for 4 weeks.

Study Conclusion: After 1 month, 2 months and 1 year, the treatment group had significant improvements in their pain and walking tolerance as compared to the placebo group

Study Conclusion #2: 20% of the patients in the placebo group underwent knee arthroplasty (8 of them) as compared to 5% of the patients in the Physical Therapy group had the surgery (only 2 of them)

Clinical Relevance: Only 4 weeks of manual physical therapy and a supervised exercise program may delay or prevent the need for a knee replacement…how wonderful!

Personal Comment:I urge you to share this published study with your patients and as many Physicians as you can as it is great evidence to support that PT does work!

Posted on: May 15, 2003

Categories: Knee