Balneotherapy for osteoarthritis: a systematic review.
Rheumatol Int
; 43(9): 1597-1610, 2023 09.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37301799
ABSTRACT
This systematic review is aimed to evaluate the effects of balneotherapy with thermal mineral water for managing the symptoms and signs of osteoarthritis located at any anatomical site. The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA Statement. The following databases were consulted PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, DOAJ and PEDro. We included clinical trials evaluating the effects of balneotherapy as a treatment for patients with osteoarthritis, published in English and Italian language, led on human subjects. The protocol was registered in PROSPERO. Overall, 17 studies have been included in the review. All of these studies were performed on adults or elderly patients suffering from osteoarthritis localized to knees, hips, hands or lumbar spine. The treatment assessed was always the balneotherapy with thermal mineral water. The outcomes evaluated were pain, palpation/pressure sensibility, articular tenderness, functional ability, quality of life, mobility, deambulation, ability to climb stairs, medical objective and patients' subjective evaluation, superoxide dismutase enzyme activity, serum levels of interleukin-2 receptors. The results of all the included studies agree and demonstrated an improvement of all the symptoms and signs investigated. In particular, pain and quality of life were the main symptoms evaluated and both improved after the treatment with thermal water in all the studies included in the review. These effects can be attributed to physical and chemical-physical properties of thermal mineral water used. However, the quality of many studies resulted not so high due and, consequently, it is necessary to perform new clinical trial in this field using more correct methods for conducting the study and for processing statistical data.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Osteoartrite
/
Balneologia
/
Águas Minerais
Tipo de estudo:
Guideline
/
Systematic_reviews
Limite:
Aged
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Rheumatol Int
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Itália