Systematic Review and Meta-analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials Comparing Exercise Loading Protocols With Passive Treatment Modalities or Other Loading Protocols for the Management of Midportion Achilles Tendinopathy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: There is no clear consensus as to which intervention to prioritize for midportion Achilles tendinopathy (AT), although recent clinical practice guidelines have recommended eccentric exercises. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to (1) compare exercise loading protocols with passive treatment modalities for the management of midportion AT and (2) compare different exercise loading protocols. We hypothesized that loading exercises would be associated with a greater decrease in pain and symptoms compared with passive treatment modalities but that no loading protocols would be associated with improved results. Study Design: Systematic review; Level of evidence, 1. Methods: Following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, we searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINHAL, and Web of Science databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and compared eccentric loading protocols with passive treatment modalities or different eccentric loading protocols as an intervention for midportion AT. A total of 5126 articles were identified after the initial search. After selection, the risk of bias (RoB) and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach were applied to pooled studies for quantitative analysis. The outcomes of interest were pain and function, which were measured using the visual analog scale and the Victorian Institute of Sport Assessment–Achilles scale. Mean differences (MDs) and 95% CIs were calculated using random effects (significant heterogeneity) or fixed effects (nonsignificant heterogeneity) inverse variance models. Results: In this study, 12 RCTs (N = 543 participants) were included, of which 2 had a high RoB and 10 showed some concerns of bias. Passive interventions resulted in greater pain reduction in the short term compared with eccentric loading protocols (n = 4 studies; n = 212 participants; pooled MD, 10.22 [95% CI, 2.18 to 18.25]; P = .01). For function, there was a nonsignificant trend in favor of eccentric loading in the short- (n = 3 studies; n = 144 participants; pooled MD, –7.91 [95% CI, –16 to 0.19]; P = .06) and midterm follow-up (n = 5 studies; n = 258 participants; pooled MD, –6.78 [95% CI, –14.23 to 0.68]; P = .07). Meta-analyses of RCTs comparing different types of exercise loading protocols showed no significant differences in the short, mid-, and long term with regard to pain and function. Conclusion: Our meta-analyses did not highlight the superiority of one treatment over another for midportion AT.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.014 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.054 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".