The Effects of Body Weight Supported Physical Activity on Joint Pain, Function and Thigh Muscle Strength in Overweight Patients with Mild – Moderate Knee Osteoarthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose To examine the effect of a 12‐week lower body positive pressure (LBPP) supported low‐load treadmill walking program on knee joint pain, function, and thigh muscle strength in overweight knee OA patients. Design Prospective, observational, repeated measures. Setting Community based, multidisciplinary sports medicine clinic. Participants Thirty‐one patients between the ages of 55–75, with a body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg/m 2 and mild to moderate knee OA. Intervention Participants exercised under low‐load treadmill walking conditions twice weekly (for 12 weeks) using an amount of lower body positive pressure (LBPP) support that minimized knee pain while walking for a period of 25 minutes at a set speed of 3.1 mph at 0° incline. Main Outcome Measurements Acute knee pain (VAS) during full weight bearing treadmill walking, chronic knee pain and joint function (KOOS questionnaire) during normal activities of daily living, thigh muscle strength (Biodex isokentic dynamometer), and body anthropometry were assessed at baseline, week 13, and again at week 46. Results Immediately following completion of the 12 week exercise regimen, participants reported significant improvements in chronic knee pain and function, and demonstrated significant increases in thigh muscle strength about the degenerative knee. Participants also experienced significant reductions in acute knee pain during full‐weight bearing treadmill walking, and required dramatically less LBPP support in order to walk pain free on the treadmill. More than 33 weeks following exercise cessation, patients continued to report improvements in knee joint pain and symptoms; experienced enhanced joint function; and maintained thigh muscle strength gains. Conclusions Data suggest that a LBPP supported low‐load exercise regime can be used to significantly diminish knee pain, enhance joint function and increase thigh muscle strength, while safely promoting pain‐free walking exercise in over‐weight knee OA patients. These findings have important implications for the development and refinement of exercise strategies and interventions used in the management of joint symptoms associated with knee OA, and for improving the physical health, quality of life and social well‐being of North America's aging population. Impact of the Study Lower body positive pressure (LBPP) supported low‐load exercise is a safe user‐friendly mode of exercise that can be successfully used in the management of day‐to‐day joint symptoms associated with knee osteoarthritis, as well as to study the long term impact of regular exercise on knee OA pathogeneses and progression. Support or Funding Information Funding provided by the Manitoba Centre on Aging, and on‐going support through the University of Manitoba and the Pan Am Clinic Foundation.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.001 | 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".