Unloading Shoes for Self-management of Knee Osteoarthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Appropriate footwear is recommended for self-management of knee osteoarthritis. Shoes that reduce harmful knee loads are available, but symptomatic effects are uncertain. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of unloading shoes in alleviating knee osteoarthritis symptoms. DESIGN: Participant- and assessor-blinded comparative effectiveness randomized, controlled trial. (Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry: ACTRN12613000851763). SETTING: Community. PARTICIPANTS: 164 persons with medial knee osteoarthritis. INTERVENTION: Walking shoes with triple-density, variable-stiffness midsoles and mild lateral-wedge insoles designed to unload the medial knee and worn daily (intervention) versus conventional walking shoes (comparator). MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcomes were pain with walking (assessed on a numerical rating scale [NRS]) and physical function (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index [WOMAC]) at 6 months. Secondary outcomes were knee pain and stiffness (WOMAC), average pain (NRS), intermittent and constant knee pain (Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis Pain questionnaire), quality of life (Assessment of Quality of Life instrument), physical activity (Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly), and global change in pain and function (Likert scales). RESULTS: A total of 160 participants (98%) completed primary outcome measures at 6 months. Changes in pain (mean difference, 0.0 units [95% CI, -0.9 to 0.8 unit]) and function (mean difference, 0.3 unit [CI, -3.2 to 3.7 units]) did not differ between groups at 6 months, with both groups showing clinically relevant improvements in function and the intervention group showing clinically relevant improvements in pain. There were no differences in secondary outcomes. Pain was globally improved in 54% of participants, and function was globally improved in 44% to 48%. Unloading shoes were not associated with increased probability of improvement (odds ratios, 0.99 [CI, 0.53 to 1.86] for pain and 0.85 [CI, 0.45 to 1.61] for function). LIMITATION: Effects on joint structure were not evaluated. CONCLUSION: Shoes with modified midsoles to unload the medial knee conferred no additional benefit over conventional walking shoes. Both improved pain and function by clinically relevant amounts. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".