PT Effectiveness for Hip & Knee OA

PT Effectiveness for Hip & Knee OA

Reference:Abbott JH, et al; MOA Trial Manual therapy, exercise therapy, or both, in addition to usual care, for osteoarthritis of the hip or knee: a randomized controlled trial. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2013 Apr;21(4):525-34.
Pinto D, et al; MOA Trial Team. Manual therapy, exercise therapy, or both, in addition to usual care, for osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. 2: economic evaluation alongside a randomized controlled trial. Osteoarthritis Cartilage. 2013 Oct;21(10):1504-13.

This recent RCT from New Zealand involved 206 adults with symptomatic hip or knee OA. Patients were randomly allocated to one of 4 groups:

1. Manual physiotherapy
2. Exercise based physiotherapy
3. Combined exercise and manual physiotherapy
4. No physiotherapy/usual care from MD

Blinded assessors evaluated the patient outcomes for up to 1 year. They showed that those in the manual therapy group and those in the exercise group had significantly better outcomes after one year when compared to those not receiving PT at all.

…however, an unexpected interesting finding was that those who received BOTH manual and exercise-based PT had no greater benefit in the short or long term.

In conclusion: This study published in the journal Osteoarthritis Cartilage justifies the role of PT in the management of hip and knee OA, as it can increase patient functional scores which is maintained even at one year follow-up.

They also evaluated the cost effectiveness of the different physiotherapy interventions and showed that all 3 PT treatment strategies resulted in cost benefits relative to usual care, from both the perspective of the health system and society.

Posted on: December 20, 2013

Categories: Hip , Knee