A critical appraisal of: Exercise, education, manual-therapy and taping compared to education for patellofemoral osteoarthritis: a blinded, randomized clinical trial

Abstract

Those that struggle with knee problems such as patellofemoral joint osteoarthritis (PFJ OA) are very prevalent in our society today, and because of this, research has been performed in order to find out what the most effective intervention could be used to treat these types of patients. In this article’s randomized clinical trials, two groups exhibiting PFJ OA symptoms were given different types of treatment in order to determine what the most optimal method of treatment was. The first group was given a combination of manual therapy, PFJ targeted exercises, education, as well as taping while the second group was to only receive PFJ OA education. The duration of the treatment lasted over a span of 9 months, and the first check up measurements were taken at the 3-month mark and the last checkup was taken at the 9-month mark. The results first showed at the 3-month follow up that the first group using a combination of treatment tools had a much higher result of improvement with their PFJ OA symptoms when compared to the second group that only performed PFJ OA education. However, at the 9-month checkup, the results in terms of the number of patients who had improved symptoms remained the same when compared to the 3-month checkup. In conclusion, the combination of exercise, education, manual-therapy, and taping can be used overusing PFJ OA education alone to improve short-term patient change in PFJ OA symptoms and that these short-term effects should exhibit the same results when performed over a longer period of time.