Self-administered acupressure for knee osteoarthritis in middle-aged and older adults: a pilot randomized controlled trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To test the acceptability and feasibility of self-administered acupressure as an intervention for knee pain among middle-aged and older adults with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). METHODS: In this pilot randomized controlled trial, 35 participants with KOA were randomized to receive self-administered acupressure (n = 17, two self-administered acupressure training sessions followed by self-practice for 6 weeks) or knee health education (n = 18, two health education sessions about KOA management followed by self-care for 6 weeks). Current pain intensity (primary outcome) was measured using a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) at baseline and weeks 1, 2, 4 and 6 (post-intervention). Secondary outcome measures included worst and least pain intensity, the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), range of motion (ROM) of the knee joints and Short-Form Six-Dimension (SF-6D) scores for health-related quality of life. RESULTS: Participants in both groups attended all training sessions. In the self-administered acupressure group, all subjects mastered the acupressure technique and passed a consistency check. Both groups showed a decreasing trend in current knee pain intensity measured using NRS post-intervention. A medium between-group effect size (0.40) was found, but between-group differences were not statistically significant. The other secondary outcome measures were also comparable between both groups post-intervention (all p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: A two-session self-administered acupressure training was acceptable to and feasible in participants with KOA. The data generated allowed for calculation of a sample size for a definitive randomized controlled trial (RCT) to confirm whether self-acupressure is effective for pain management in KOA. Furthermore trials with adequate power and longer follow-up periods are warranted.
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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 | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
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".