Aerobic exercise in reducing pain in knee osteoarthritis

Abstract

Introduction: Knee osteoarthritis is the onset of a degenerative cartilage disease in which the entire population is immersed, accompanied by pain, functional limitation and inflammation, so exercise is the main source of treatment for health professionals, therefore a treatment based on aerobic exercise has been designed.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of aerobic exercise to reduce the pain of Knee osteoarthritis between the ages of 45 and 60 years.

Method: A quantitative quasi-experimental study was carried out in 31 patients of the Basic Hospital of Guaranda after signing the informed consent; in whom an aerobic exercise intervention was applied 3 times a week for 40 minutes each session in a total of 10 interventions. The scale of pain, muscle strength, joint range before and after the intervention was applied, analyzing the univariate and bivariate results at a significance level of 5%, through a wilcoxon test for hypothesis testing. 

Results: The flexion range of the bilateral joints of the left knee went from 109.35 ± 16.152 to 122.61 ± 5.64, the pain was 2.52 ± 2.52 lowering its intensity 0.58±.807 and the muscle strength returned to normal after the intervention 3.61±.989 to 4.61±.495(5). That for the right knee also shows the null hypothesis was rejected for all three independent variables.

Conclusion: Patients with Knee osteoarthritis have experienced very significant changes in pain reduction, increased strength and increased joint range demonstrating its effectiveness.