Effectiveness of physiotherapy management in knee osteoarthritis: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Osteoarthritis is a major cause of musculoskeletal disability. Nonpharmacological and nonsurgical treatment is preferred for the management of knee osteoarthritis (OA). However, evidences are lacking regarding the effectiveness of multimodal physiotherapy program including, combination of various physical modalities (TENS, IR, US etc.) with therapeutic exercises, for the management of knee OA. Objectives: To determine recent research evidences for the effectiveness of combination of physical therapy interventions for treatment of knee OA patients. Methods: This systematic review mainly includes randomized controlled trails. Searching done by Google scholar, Pub med and PEDro from 2010 to 2019. We used terms like-knee pain, OA, TENS, exercise, and physiotherapy management. Results: Present outcomes shows that physiotherapy treatment is effective technique in reducing pain in patients with Knee OA without adverse effects. After implementing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 100 articles were retrieved using the key words, but only 10 articles were selected for the study. Conclusion: Electrotherapy modalities in conjunction with exercise therapy program designed for treating knee OA patients proved to be more superior to exercise alone at improving quadriceps muscle activation by reducing pain and increasing function during exercise.