Abstract:
Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee is the most common form of joint disease. It is one of
the major causes of impaired function that reduces quality of life (QOL) worldwide.
To evaluate the association between Environmental Impacts (weather, occupation,
posture, age, sex, obesity, exercise, sports, diet, demographic, joint injury, hormone,
bone density etc.) and knee pain among individuals with osteoarthritis (OA) (n=299).
This prospective study evaluated men and women, aged 40 to 80yr, participating in a
community-based, osteoarthritis exercise study (June 2012–June 2016). Weekly selfreported
pain scores were collected using a visual analogue scale. Statistical tests,
including regression and correlation analyses, were conducted. P values<0.001 were
considered significant. To compare the effectiveness of sustainable management using
different therapeutic agents (swimming exercise, quadriceps stretching exercise,
mobilization exercise, deep transverse friction massage with hot pack).
The mean temperature was 23°C with a low of 4°C and a high of 40°C. Most
associations explored produced non-significant findings. However, among women
with knee OA, higher pain was significantly associated with days of rising barometric
pressure (P<0.001). While some associations were suggestive of a relationship,
largely these findings indicate that weather is quite modestly, if at all, associated with
pain from OA. Some occupational activities increase the risk of knee OA, although
the influences of publication bias and heterogeneity are important limitations of this
study. Both aerobic walking and home based quadriceps strengthening exercise
reduce pain and disability from knee osteoarthritis but no difference between them
was found on indirect comparison. Obesity was also significantly associated with
knee OA There was no statistically significant interaction effect between BMI and
gender, age or any of the other confounding variables. A moderate correlation was
found between joint displacement detection threshold and age (r = 0.557 and r = 0.625
for the right knee and the left knee, respectively). The threshold was substantially and
significantly different between the OA patients and the elderly controls.------
Description:
This Thesis is Submitted to the Institute of Education and Research (IER) , University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
