CORRELATION OF KNEE PAIN AMONG SUBJECTS WITH OSTEOARTHRITIS TAKING GRAPHENE-BASED THERMOTHERAPY FOR HEALTH IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

Leg health is an important consideration in a person’s overall well-being, and knee osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the problems that reduces leg health. Thermotherapy therapy has long been recognized as one of the methods for treating knee OA pain. This study recruited 30 subjects with OA (aged 45–80, height of 155–175[Formula: see text]cm, weight of 60–95[Formula: see text]kg and body mass index of 18–40) to participate in a repeated measure for inter-subject and intra-subject analysis on pre- and post-treatment-based thermotherapy sessions where SpO2, pulse rate (PR) and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) were measured within 4 weeks of explorative study. When a subject is subjected to thermotherapy, SpO2 increases and PR decreases compared with those of the control group, which did not present significant differences. The findings show a high degree of inter- and intra-subject repeatability. When a subject received thermotherapy for 4 weeks, his or her overall leg health improved, as indicated by a high KOOS and high KOOS-pain score. This is demonstrated by an increase in KOOS over the course of 4 weeks of thermotherapy.