Abstract

Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is indicated for treating chronic refractory joint pain. The most frequent condition for this surgery is knee osteoarthritis (OA). It is the definitive treatment for relieving pain and restoring function in people with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis for whom medical therapy has failed. It has become the standard of care for patients with end-stage knee OA. From rehabilitative aspect it is important to quickly re-establish knee range of motion (ROM). Socioeconomic background factor of patients also create impact on the recovery of patients.

Purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of inpatient physiotherapy & rehabilitation program on patients of two different socioeconomic backgrounds i.e. urban & rural.

In the study a total of 60 subjects were included based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and allocated into two groups between the age group of 65-74 years. A common physiotherapy rehabilitation protocol has been applied for both the groups. Both the groups were re-assessed at the end of 5 days in the hospital stay and results obtained in both the groups were compared.

The pre and post intervention pain, ROM, and function within groups and in-between groups had been analysed using pair and unpair t tests based on data presentation. Results had been considered significant at p<0.05.

The results of the study had shown that physiotherapy rehabilitation improved pain intensity, knee flexion AROM, and function in patients with Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA).  But the post interventional results had shown that rural participants executed better results than urban.

Keywords: TKA – Total Knee Arthroplasty, OA – Osteoarthritis, AROM – Active Range of Motion, TUG- Timed up and Go Test, NPRS- Numeric Pain Rating Scale.