Effectiveness of knee acupressure along with herbal knee poultice for knee osteoarthritis treatment: A pilot pre-post clinical study

Abstract

Background & objectiveAccording to the clinical practice guideline of the Traditional Thai Medicine hospital, the therapeutic procedure of knee osteoarthritis (KOA) has been improved. The purpose of this study was aimed to assess the effectiveness of the procedure for the relief of knee pain in KOA patients. MethodsA multi-center, open-label, pre-post clinical trial was performed in 39 patients with KOA. Patients were treated with seven points of knee acupressure for 14 min. along with 30 min. of herbal knee poultice (Zingiber cassumunar, Gloriosa superba, Aloe vera, and Cinnamomum camphora). The clinical assessments including WOMAC score, visual analog scale (VAS) for pain as well as knee physical examination were carried out to compare between day 0 and day 3 after the treatment. ResultsA total of 36 patients were analyzed at the end of the study. The result revealed that WOMAC and VAS significantly reduced (p < 0.05) after three times of the treatment with the KOA guideline when compared with day 0. Moreover, the physical examination of the knee was improved. Based on the criteria of the International Contact Dermatitis Research Group (ICDRG), there was no skin irritation observed in all patients. ConclusionThis study proved that the KOA guideline from Traditional Thai Medicine hospital could potentially be applied to relieve pain in KOA.