TY - JOUR
T1 - Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Improves Stair Climbing Capacity in People with Knee Osteoarthritis
AU - Iijima, Hirotaka
AU - Eguchi, Ryo
AU - Shimoura, Kanako
AU - Yamada, Keisuke
AU - Aoyama, Tomoki
AU - Takahashi, Masaki
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the members of Aoyama Laboratory (Kyoto University, Kyoto) for their assistance with the data collection. The authors thank Editage (www.editage.jp) for the English language editing. This study was supported in part by (1) a funding from Omron Healthcare Co., Ltd., and (2) a grant-in-aid from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (https://www.jsps.go.jp/) for Research Fellows to HI.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - This study aimed to examine the effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on stair climbing capacity in individuals with pre-radiographic to mild knee osteoarthritis (OA). This is a secondary analysis of data from a single, participant-blinded, randomized controlled trial with a pre-post design. Participants with pre-radiographic to mild knee OA (mean age, 59.1 years; 72.9% women) were randomly assigned into two groups, a TENS (n = 30) and a sham-TENS groups (n = 29). TENS or sham-TENS treatments were applied to all participants by using the prototype TENS device with pre-specified parameters. The primary outcome measures included valid and reliable functional measures for stair climbing (stair-climb test [SCT]), visual analog scale for knee pain during the SCT, and quadriceps muscle strength. TENS improved SCT time by 0.41 s (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.07, 0.75). The time reduction in the transition phase explains the TENS therapeutic effect. Post-hoc correlation analyses revealed a non-significant but positive relationship between the pain relief effect and improved 11-step SCT time in the TENS group but not in the sham-TENS group. These results indicate that the TENS intervention may be an option for reducing the burden of early-stage knee OA.
AB - This study aimed to examine the effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on stair climbing capacity in individuals with pre-radiographic to mild knee osteoarthritis (OA). This is a secondary analysis of data from a single, participant-blinded, randomized controlled trial with a pre-post design. Participants with pre-radiographic to mild knee OA (mean age, 59.1 years; 72.9% women) were randomly assigned into two groups, a TENS (n = 30) and a sham-TENS groups (n = 29). TENS or sham-TENS treatments were applied to all participants by using the prototype TENS device with pre-specified parameters. The primary outcome measures included valid and reliable functional measures for stair climbing (stair-climb test [SCT]), visual analog scale for knee pain during the SCT, and quadriceps muscle strength. TENS improved SCT time by 0.41 s (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.07, 0.75). The time reduction in the transition phase explains the TENS therapeutic effect. Post-hoc correlation analyses revealed a non-significant but positive relationship between the pain relief effect and improved 11-step SCT time in the TENS group but not in the sham-TENS group. These results indicate that the TENS intervention may be an option for reducing the burden of early-stage knee OA.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-020-64176-0
DO - 10.1038/s41598-020-64176-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 32350320
AN - SCOPUS:85083976279
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 10
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 7294
ER -