Manual therapy for knee OA: what are the benefits?
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is gradually becoming one of the most common causes of disability in the older population.
The major symptoms of knee OA include pain and stiffness in the knee joint, which may cause functional impairments that may lead to a reduced quality of life.
In recent times, there have been many studies confirming the effectiveness of exercise therapy for the treatment and management of knee OA.
However, as physiotherapists are sometimes also using manual therapy techniques as a treatment modality for knee OA, this systematic review sought to find the efficacy of manual therapy on pain functional disability, ROM and physical performance in patients with knee OA.
Studies were only included if they were Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT), included manual therapy as a treatment modality, and the treatment was targeted specifically for knee OA. Manual therapy was defined as any hands-on treatment given by the physiotherapist.
The synthesis of the available data found that manual therapy with and without exercise therapy resulted in reducing pain, improving function, ROM and physical performance in patients with knee OA in the short term.
> From: Anwer et al., J Physiother 104 (2018) 264-276. All rights reserved to Elsevier Ltd. Click here for the online summary.
