Knee Osteoarthritis: An Overview of Recent Interventions

Abstract

- Knee Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common forms of arthritis contributing to the burden of physical disability. This review focuses on the general and managerial aspects of knee OA. Different electrotherapeutic modalities which are commonly employed to alleviate symptoms of knee OA are Ultrasound therapy (0.5-5MHz), Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (2-10 Hz) and Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (50–100 Hz). Pulsed Electrical Stimulation (PES) is another electrotherapy treatment where low frequency current (100 Hz) is believed to promote synthesis of chondrocyte Type 2 collagen and aggrecan, and suppression of matrix metalloproteinases and Interleukin 1(IL 1), hence having a positive effect on chondrocyte function through gene regulation. In this paper, the effectiveness of electrotherapeutic modalities along with physiotherapy, surgery and other measures are reviewed. It has been found that available studies on PES have discussed limited conclusions about its role. Hence, our study aims to understand the effectiveness of PES on knee OA in comparison to commercially available technologies to overcome proposed gaps and may be treated as better therapeutic modality in near future. The data collected or conclusions drawn were through literature survey only. No experimental study or practical usage of the different devices was conducted, which could be considered in future.