The effectivenes of different physical therapy modalities to life quality and physical function in patients with knee osteoarthritis

This study had made on 60 patients with knee osteoarthritis who applied to Turgut Özal Medicine Center Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Policlinic. Our aim is to determine the effect of exercise programme on pain, functional capacity and quality of life and to compare them. Patients randomly classified to four equal groups ;Group I: HP + TENS + USGroup II: HP + TENS + Pulse KDDGroup III: HP + TENS + Stationary bicycle exerciseGroup IV: HP + TENS + Pulse KDD + Stationary bicycle exerciseThe physical exercise programs of all groups were performed 5 times for a week and as 15 seance.stationary bicycle exercise was performed 3 times for a week and as 9 seance.Before and after treatment, patients were evaluated according to knee OA index as duration of 50 step walking, joint movement distance, knee and thigh circumference, VAS, WOMAC, Lequesne, SIP and parameter as SF-36 quality of life. All groups obtained significant improvements on WOMAC, Lequesne, SIP index and measurement of quality of life; no difference was observed between the groups.While significant improvements were obtained for whole groups on VAS assesment; when comparing groups each other it is found statistically meaningfull in first group then other groups.While all groups obtained significant improvements on distance of 50 step walking; when comparing groups each other it is found statistically meaningfull in fourth group then other groups.Statistically, significant difference was found at second and fourth group after treatment but significant difference was not observed at comparison between groups.In conclusion,our findings demonstrated that regularly performed exercise programs can be used confidently for treatment of knee osteoarthritis, there in no significant advantage according to each other for activity assesment after treatment. In addition to obtained gains only the fourth group in terms of increased walking rate and only the first group in terms of VAS assesment, we think that to determine the meaningfulness with more comprehensive patients series will able to offer more confident data. These findings are short term results of the study, there is necessity for long term follow-up studies for permanence of goodness state