Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-28-2021
Abstract
Background and Objectives This systematic review aims to evaluate the efficacy of Tele-Rehabilitation for decreasing pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Materials and Methods: Following the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), three electronic databases (CINAHL, PubMed, PEDro), along with the addition of grey literature, were used to collect information. Randomized control trials (RCTs) comparing tele-rehabilitation (TR) to office-based-rehabilitation (OB) were critically appraised using the 2005 University of Oxford Standard. A total of 139 articles (PubMed = 132, CINAHL = 5, PEDro = 0, grey literature = 2) were acquired. Results: After the screening, three RCTs were included in our review. Their results show no statistically significant differences between TR and OB intervention. Furthermore, their results showed an overall reduction in pain in both groups from the baseline to the end of the study. However, each intervention’s clinical efficiency was dependent on the exercise protocol itself and not on the method of delivery. There is a potential ceiling effect to the amount of therapy a patient can receive in which additional therapy would no longer lead to improved recovery. Conclusions: Our review suggests evidence that TR’s efficacy is similar to that of OB for improvement of WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index) score parameters in patients suffering from knee OA.
Comments
This work was originally published in Medicina available at https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57080764
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).