INFLUENCE OF PAIN, TENDERNESS AND RADIOGRAPHIC FEATURES ON WALKING ENDURANCE IN OVERWEIGHT EARLY KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS POPULATION: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

H. Patel¹, V. Pujara¹

¹Ashok & Rita Patel Institute of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medical Sciences, CHARUSAT, Changa, India

Background: Overweight is considered as growing risk factor for early knee osteoarthritis. It is the modifiable risk factor for young population considering the involvement of functional activity in daily routine activity. Walking impairment is the initial limitation in osteoarthritis population. It might be because of progression in degeneration of joint structure. It is important to identify functional impairments affected in early knee osteoarthritis in order to initiate early interventions and therapeutic approaches that could prevent progression and severe structural changes in the joint associated with the latter stage of the OA.

Purpose: To analyse the relationship of pain, tenderness, disease severity, muscle strength, walking endurance and Gujarati version WOMAC in overweight early knee osteoarthritis individuals.

Methods: The study design was a cross sectional observational study. Total 116 overweight individual who having the early knee osteoarthritis were participated. Their age was between 40-60 years, no previous history of trauma or severe impairments, no severe comorbidity of cardiopulmonary disorders, the body mass index between 23.0-24.9kg/m² and able to read and write the vernacular language. Informed consent form was obtained before participation. Participants were screen out for the eligibility criteria and the assessments were completed for pain intensity based on numerical pain rating scale., tenderness site, disease severity- radiological investigation (classification criteria K&L 1 or 2), manual muscle strength, 6-minute walk test (walking endurance) and Gujarati version WOMAC.

Results: The mean age of participants were 50.23 (± 5.87) years. The baseline score of an outcome measures were moderate pain (56.3%); tenderness present on medial joint line and around the patella (47.9%) and muscle strength (-4) grade (35.4%); While walking endurance mean was 288.64 m. (± 63.77 m) and Gujarati version WOMAC mean was 0.40(±0.08) for the participants. The results implied that there was association between pain intensity and muscle strength at statistically significance p value =0.409(2-sided). There were medium associations (η: 0.486, 0.480) between walking endurance and Gujarati version WOMAC with tenderness and significant positive moderate correlation (r=0.488) between muscle strength and walking endurance.

Conclusions: Early knee osteoarthritis was associated with tenderness, muscle strength, walking endurance and Gujarati version WOMAC in the overweight population but not strong association was seen while comparing with advance stage. Muscle strength was significantly correlated with walking endurance and Gujarati version WOMAC with regardless of radiographic features of early phenotype.

Implications: The study results identify the the clinical and functional impairments for early knee osteoarthritis population. It is important for establishing prevention strategy and improvising in treatment protocols.

Funding acknowledgements: The project was funded by CHARUSAT Institutional research grant for post graduate students.

Keywords:
Early knee osteoarthritis
Walking endurance
Early clinical symptoms

Topics:
Musculoskeletal: lower limb
Orthopaedics
Health promotion & wellbeing/healthy ageing/physical activity

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: CHARUSAT

Committee: Institutional Ethics Committee-CHARUSAT

Ethics number: CHA/IEC/ADM/21/02/105.09