Effects of medical exercise therapy in patients with hip osteoarthritis: A randomized controlled trial with six months follow-up. A pilot study.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: There is no consensus regarding what type of exercises, combination of exercises or exercise dosage is most effective in patients with long-term hip arthrosis. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of two different exercise programs related to dose-response relationships. METHOD: Prospective randomized controlled clinical trial with 6 months follow where 33 participants were randomly assigned to either high repetitive, high dosage medical exercise therapy (MET) (n = 16) or low dosage exercise therapy (ET) (n = 17). Primary outcomes are pain using a visual analog scale (VAS) and function using a functional assessment questionnaire (WOMAC). RESULTS: Patients were equal at baseline. Two patients (6%) dropped out during the treatment period. There were no difference between groups after end of treatment nor at 6 months follow up. However, there were significant differences within each exercise group at end of treatment. CONCLUSION: In this pilot study, we were not able to show any difference between MET and ET. More research is needed with a larger patient population and a more extensive exercise period similar to other studies that are published regarding dose-response effects. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01700933.

Medical exercise therapy, and not arthroscopic surgery, resulted in decreased depression and anxiety in patients with degenerative meniscus injury.

The purpose of this pilot study was to compare the effectiveness of conservative therapy involving medical exercise therapy (MET) versus arthroscopic surgery in patients with knee pain, with MRI-verified degenerative meniscus. The patients were randomly assigned either to MET (n = 9) or to arthroscopic surgery (n = 8). Patients receiving MET had 3 treatments a week for 3 months, a total of 36 treatments. The arthroscopy consisted of meniscectomy with no structured conservative therapy after surgery. Assessment of pain, function, anxiety and depression were performed at inclusion and after 3 months. At the end of treatment, which was 3 months after inclusion, there were no statistical differences between the two groups regarding pain and function. However, anxiety and depression were significantly reduced in the MET group compared with the patients receiving arthroscopic surgery. Bearing in mind the low number of included patients in this pilot study, arthroscopy was found to be no better than MET regarding knee pain and overall daily function. The results from this pilot study are similar to other clinical studies, thereby demonstrating that conservative therapy is just as effective as surgery.