Risk Of Falling For Individuals With Knee Pain

Subjects: 50 participants with PFPS between 18 and 45 years of age, with patellofemoral pain Syndrome for more than 1 month, pain level ≥ 3 on a Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), pain during at least 2 activities, such as squatting, ascending, descending stairs, and/or running, Unilateral PFPS, and participants are not on pain medication.

Joint Pain: A Prospective Cohort Study in the General Population. The Journal of Pain Official

Osteoarthritis is degenerative joint disease caused by mechanical wear and tear. Damage manifest as breakdown of cartilage, injury of subhondral bone and changes to all articular surfaces. it presents as pain in weight bearing joints that worsen with use. The joints that are mostly affected are the distal interphalanges, knees, hips, toes and spine [1]. Knee osteoarthritis is suspected after a medical history and physical examination is done. During the physical examination the doctor will examine the knee and its series of motion. He will pay close attention to areas that are swollen, tender and painful [2]. There are a variety of diagnostic tests that may help confirm the diagnosis if patient’s knee is affected. There is X-ray that

According to Petterson and Jacobsson (2002), degenerative joint disease (DJD) or osteoarthritis is the most common joint disorder seen in humans, affecting 60% of adults 60 years of age and older. Many studies have attempted to treat patients with DJD in a number of different ways including the use of the drug glucosamine, glucosamine and alendronate. Hamid Reza Arti and Mohammad Ebrahim Azemi undertook their own research in 2012 by comparing the effect of glucosamine and glucosamine with alendronate in symptomatic relieve of degenerative knee joint disease. They believed that due to the high prevalence of osteoarthritis especially knee osteoarthritis identification of effective treatment methods was an important factor in medical treatment of knee osteoarthritis. According to Arti and Azemi (2012) no previous study had addressed these issues.

I will be discussing osteoarthritis; first I will describe the normal relevant physiology of the knee joints. The knee is the largest and most complex joint in the body. This is the most susceptible joint because it bears a lot of weight and pressure loads while in motion. The joint is made up of the lower end of the femur and the upper end of the tibia. The patella the kneecap slides along a groove on the femur, and covers the front of the joint. The meniscus and cartilage cushion the spaces between these bones, and act as shock absorbers during movement. The cartilage is a stiff connective tissue found between the joints. The cell of the cartilage is called chondrocytes. They make protein fibers composing cartilage. In addition to that, there

Fall is the major cause of injury in the elderly, which places more load on the health care system (Krasovsky, Lamontagne, Feldman, & Levin, 2014). Samuel D. Towne Jr. and his colleagues conducted a study to calculate the cost of hospitalizing older people as a result of falling in Texas Hospital. 77,086 fallers were hospitalized, costing around 3.1 billion dollars in 2011, which is an increase of around 2 billion dollars since 2007 (Towne, Ory, & Smith, 2014). Moreover, fall directly causes 21,649 deaths and indirectly causes 5,402 deaths in the United States in 2010 (Stevens & Rudd, 2014). Also, 420,000 individuals around the world die yearly because of falling (Mignardot et al., 2014). Most falls in older adults take place during walking (Lee, Verghese, Holtzer, Mahoney, & Oh-Park, 2014). Therefore, falls are related to gait variability

Also, the severity of the knee pain of the participant was assessed by use of Kujala questionnaire and OSTRC Overuse injury questionnaire (Appendix 3).

Falling is a common cause of the health problem, leading to injury, hospitalization, institutionalization, and even mortality in community-dwelling older adults (1, 2). It is estimated that 30–40% of older adults experience at least 1 fall a year. This amounts to direct costs of 0.1% and 1.5%, respectively, of the total healthcare expenditures of the United States and European countries (3). Over the past few decades, a number of risk factors of falling have been identified (e.g., mobility, mental status, vision, hearing, blood pressure, hip weakness, medications, and balance control) (4-6). Prospective study also finds previous fall experience as a significant predictor of future falls (7). It is therefore important to obtain a good understanding of risk factors for falls to enable identification of targets for intervention and prevention.

People all ages often suffer from knee pain. Due to the amount of things that can go wrong, by understanding how the knee works, one can prevent new injuries and solve old injuries.

The outcomes of interest will be the specific fall incidences for both the treatment (participants subjected to regular exercise programs) and control groups (participants not subjected to the regular exercise programs. It is expected that the differences noted for fall incidence will be credited to the exercise program. The source of information on fall incidence will be from weekly interviews with the participants where they are asked whether they has experienced any falls in the course of that week. The collected data would then be evaluated using ratio analysis that quantifies the outcome differences for the treatment and control groups in terms of magnitude and direction. In addition, confidence interval will be presented as a measure

balance in the clinics is to use subjective measures obtained through the use of questionnaires (clinical rating scales)

The article summarizes that “A fall is an event that results in a person coming to rest unintentionally on the ground or floor or other lower level” (World Health Organization 2007) (1). The risk of falls and associated complications rise steadily with age and can be a marker of increased frailty. “Frailty is widely accepted to include a combination of weight loss, fatigue, reduced grip strength, diminished physical activity or slowed gait associated with increased risk of falls, loss of mobility, hospitalization, increasing disability and death” ( Fried, Tangen, Walston, et al. 2001) (2). “Physiotherapists leads falls clinics providing comprehensive assessment, identifying underlying pathologies such as (osteoporosis), signposting

• Fall risk: Use with extreme caution in patients who are at risk of falls.

of the elderly people above the age of 65, experience at least one fall per year. The growing

With a significant difference for the active and passive ROM toward knee flexion (p=0.007;p=0.008), asymmetry in active and passive ROM toward flexion between the healthy leg and the leg with the TKA (p=0.001;p=0.001), Quadriceps- and Hamstrings strength (p=0.001;p<0.001), all parameters for the 6MWT and the time of the SCT (p=0.001). Regarding the prediction model, the 6month PROMs can be predicted by some parameters for the 6MWT (distance (p=0.001), gait steps (p=0.002) and step time TKA (p=0.007)). These parameters are predictors for the score on the subscales ‘symptoms’ and ‘pain’ of the KOOS questionnaire. 1 Year after surgery, there is an improvement of all parameters, except for the active and passive ROM toward knee extension. However, these differences are not significant. The 1 year PROMs can only be predicted by the muscle strength (Quadriceps- and Hamstrings strength (p=0.026; p=0.039) and the asymmetry in Quadriceps strength between the healthy leg and the leg with the TKA (p=0.031)). The score on the subscale ‘pain’ can be predicted based on the parameters mentioned