ABSTRACT
Objective: To investigate the effect of acupressure therapy as an adjunctive therapy to pharmacological treatment on pain and health-related quality of life (QOL) among knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients.Methods: One hundred KOA patients were recruited from the orthopedic out-patient clinic of the institute. The patients were allocated randomly (flipping-coin simple randomization method) into an intervention group (n=50) and a control group (n=50). Patients in the intervention group received acupressure therapy along with pharmacological treatment. Patients in the control group did not receive acupressure therapy but continued their pharmacological treatment. Changes in pain (visual analog scale, VAS) and QOL (short-form 36-item health survey, SF-36) scores at baseline (A0), during training session (A1), follow-up at the 3rd month after training (A2) and follow-up at the 6th month after training session (A3) were collected and examined. Multiple regression analysis was used to check the relationship between pain and SF-36 domains. Results: The VAS score of participants in the intervention group decreased at A3 (P=0.001). Scores of physical functioning (PF), role limitations due to emotional problems (RE) and mental health (MH) of SF-36 in the intervention group improved more as compared with the control group. Patients in the intervention group with improvement in VAS (pain) score showed greater changes in mean scores of all domains of SF-36 from baseline (all P?0.05). Except bodily pain (BP), the other domains of SF-36 were negatively correlated with pain score. Conclusion: Acupressure therapy with pharmacological treatment can improve health-related QOL and pain among KOA patients.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis is the most common type of arthritis. Depression, anxiety, and stress are associated with knee osteoarthritis. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to check the effectiveness of acupressure therapy with pharmacological treatment on pain, depression, anxiety, and stress in patients with knee osteoarthritis and to assess the effect of pain improvement on psychological health. METHODS: Eligible 212 patients with knee osteoarthritis were divided into two groups (intervention and control group). The intervention group (n = 106) received acupressure therapy in combination with pharmacological treatment, whereas the control group (n = 106) continued pharmacological treatment only. Pain and psychological symptoms were measured using the visual analog scale and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21. Pearson's correlation was used to check the effect of pain improvement on psychological health. RESULTS: Patients of both groups reported severe pain initially. On analyzing the results after completion of the study, it was found that patients in the intervention group scored better on the pain scale (p < 0.001) and DASS-21 (p ≤ 0.0001). However, it may be noted that reduction in the DASS-21 score was not found to be significant for the control group (p = 0.08). Pearson's correlation coefficients value ranged from 0.231 to 0.412 for DASS-21 (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: On analysis, it can be concluded that acupressure can be used as add-on therapy in combination with conventional treatment (pharmacological treatment), which may assist in pain reduction. The reduction in pain directly contributes to improvement in the physiological wellness among patients with knee osteoarthritis.
