The effect of pain neuroscience education on pain, function, quality of life and fear of movement in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of pain neuroscience education on pain, function, quality of life and fear of movement in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. 80 volunteer patients who applied to the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Department of Private Mediworld Medical Center and met the inclusion criteria were equally and randomly distributed to the control and experimental groups. While conventional physiotherapy protocols were applied to the participants in the control group, the participants in the experimental group were given pain neuroscience education (PNE) once a week in addition to the conventional physiotherapy protocols. The patients were treated for 5 weeks, 3 days a week. Pain severity with Numerical Pain Scale (NPS), pressure-pain threshold with algometer, functionality with Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), quality of life with SF-36 scale, knee joint range of motion (ROM) measurements with goniometer, fear of movement with the Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale (TKS), and their beliefs and thoughts about pain with the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) were assessed. Evaluation was performed by a blinded physiotherapist to the treatment groups before and after treatment. When the findings of the study were evaluated, statistically significant improvements were found on the pain intensity, pressure- pain threshold measurements, WOMAC score, SF-36 score, flexion ROM measurement, and PCS scores in the control and experimental groups (p<0.05). Improvement was found on the TKS score only in the experimental group. In the comparison between the groups, the curative effect of the experimental group was found to be superior to the control group in all parameters except SF-36's emotional and physical role subheadings, ROM and pressure-pain threshold (p<0.05). As a result, it was found that PNE applied in addition to conventional physiotherapy in knee OA patients was more effective on pain severity, function, quality of life and fear of movement compared to conventional physiotherapy alone.