Magnetic field as a treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee

ABSTRACT

The sounds that may be produced from knee movements of normal subjects and the knee noises produced in osteoarthritis patients were recorded and displayed as signals by a sensory microphone, magnetic tape, amplifier, recorder and memory oscilloscope [new assessment with highly significant reproducibility]. Normal subjects possessed only one type of wave form, simple sinesoidal with minimum amplitude whereas, osteoarthritis cases possessed more than one type of signals such as complex, pulsed, diphasic and polyphasic with high amplitude. Application of magnetic field as magnet sheet of 1500 gw led to amelioration appearing as a decrease in both frequency and amplitude, while chronic knee exposure minimized the types of signals as well as frequency and amplitude. This amelioration which appeared from phonoarthrography coincided with X-ray grading and pain score. This effect was attributed to the improvement of the knee microcirculation