A Comparative Study on the Effectiveness of Supervised Physiotherapy vs Unsupervised Home Exercise in the Management of OA (Osteoarthritis) Related Knee Pain

Knee joint osteoarthritis is a chronic musculoskeletal disorder that affects the functionality of cartilage
thereby degenerating them. Osteoarthritis is essentially a musculoskeletal disorder that mostly occurs
at the cartilaginous portions of the joints in the body. This results into inflammation and excruciating
pain in the affected joint.
This study was a cross-sectional study that targeted the osteoarthritic patients. A population of 300
patients was sampled using snowballing techniques to find adequate number of patients. Structured
questionnaires were then administered to the patients, the questionnaires had Likert scale and the
performance was recorded in tables. The specific objectives were to evaluate knowledge, attitude and
practices taken by patients in both supervised and non-supervised physiotherapy and finally to
evaluate the most appropriate physiotherapeutic intervention between the two. The results indicated
in knowledge, attitude and practices, supervised physiotherapy registered performance as 94, 86 and
96 respectively while for non-supervised it was 52, 51 and 46 respectively.
The results indicate that supervised physiotherapy yields better results and quicker recovery time. The
non-supervised clients have no skills in executing the practices and are likely to bring more harm than
good to themselves. From this study, it is quite imperative that the patients to encouraged to pursue
supervised physiotherapy which is highly recommended to them. It is therefore recommended that the
knee joint osteoarthritic patients should adopt a supervised physiotherapeutic intervention to which
shall positively impact their lives.