None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Participants will be recruited from the community via advertisements, medical practitioners and our own research database.
Interventions
Each participant will be treated by an experienced physiotherapist, trained and proficient in the interventions. The treatment will be delivered in 8 sessions (30-60 minutes duration) over 12 weeks (1/week for 4 weeks, 1/fortnight for 8 weeks).
The physiotherapy treatment will consist of quadriceps muscle retraining, quadriceps and hip muscle strengthening, patellar taping, manual patellofemoral and soft tissue mobilization, hip muscle retraining and OA education. The treatment will be tailore
Each participant will be treated by an experienced physiotherapist, trained and proficient in the interventions. The treatment will be delivered in 8 sessions (30-60 minutes duration) over 12 weeks (1/week for 4 weeks, 1/fortnight for 8 weeks). The physiotherapy treatment will consist of quadriceps muscle retraining, quadriceps and hip muscle strengthening, patellar taping, manual patellofemoral and soft tissue mobilization, hip muscle retraining and OA education. The treatment will be tailored according to each patient’s clinical presentation (eg strength, pain severity, swelling), presence of comorbidities (eg back and hip pain or pathology) and progressed based on individual response to exercise load, thus maximising the training effects. Exercises will be supervised by the physiotherapist during each visit. A home exercise program will be prescribed, to be performed independently at home 4 times per week. An exercise manual will be produced, with clear instructions and diagrams. Specific aspects of the treatment include: For the remaining 6 months of the trial, participants will be required to continue with a home maintenance program. Compliance with the program will be monitored from the diary recordings of exercise completions, usual pain and medication use.
Sponsors
Dr Kay M Crossley
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
40 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
To be included in the study, participants must fulfil the following criteria: (i) aged at least 40 years; (ii) anterior- or retro-patellar knee pain aggravated by at least two activities that load the PFJ (eg stair ambulation, squatting and/or rising from sitting); (iii) pain severity at least 4 on an 11 point numerical pain scale during aggravating activities; (iv) pain during these activities present on most days during the past month; (v) osteophyte grade at least grade 1 in the lateral PFJ compartment on skyline x-ray
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria include: (i) concomitant pain from other knee structures, hip or lumbar spine; (ii) current or previous physiotherapy for knee pain (prior 12 months); (iii) contra-indications to the treatments (eg tape allergy); (iv) recent knee injections (prior 3 months); (v) planned lower limb surgery in the following 6 months; (vi) body mass index more than 34 kg.m2; (vii) medial patellofemoral OA (osteophytes or joint space narrowing on a skyline x-ray) that is more severe than lateral patellofemoral OA; (viii) moderate to severe concomitant tibiofemoral OA (Kellgren and Lawrence grade more than grade 2 on an postero-anterior radiograph); (ix) knee or hip arthroplasty or osteotomy; (xi) physical inability to undertake testing procedures or; (x) other medical conditions, including arthritic conditions which could affect testing or treatment outcomes; (xi) inability to understand written and spoken English.
Outcome results
None listed