Effect of warm needle therapy guided by ultrasound on pain relief and improvement of physical function in patients with knee osteoarthritis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Conventional treatments for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) often fall short in providing optimal outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of warm needle therapy guided by ultrasound on pain relief and physical function in patients with KOA. METHODS: In this retrospective study, the clinical records of patients with KOA undergoing either meloxicam alone or meloxicam combined with warm needle therapy were reviewed. Various parameters, including pain evaluations, Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scores, range of motion for knee flexion, knee society scores, quality of life scores, inflammatory factor levels, and patient satisfaction were comparatively analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 140 patients were included, including 68 patients treated by Meloxicam and 72 patients treated by Meloxicam and warm needle therapy. Following treatment, the meloxicam combined with warm needle therapy group exhibited lower pain scores (3.62±1.98 vs. 4.38±1.95, P=0.023), improved WOMAC scores (27.82±8.75 vs. 31.25±8.82, P=0.022), increased range of motion (136.82°±8.58° vs. 133.43°±8.86°, P=0.023), higher knee society scores (93.32±7.21 vs. 90.21±7.78, P=0.016), and superior Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) scores (81.24±6.33 vs. 78.43±6.85, P=0.013). Furthermore, a significant reduction in inflammatory factors including interleukin-8 (IL-8), matrix metalloproteinase-3 (MMP-3), Interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) levels was observed in the meloxicam combined with warm needle therapy group compared to the meloxicam alone group (all P<0.05). Patient satisfaction was likewise notably higher in the meloxicam combined with warm needle therapy group (8.43±2.15 vs. 7.58±2.24, P=0.024), with a greater proportion of patients willing to recommend the treatment (81.94% vs. 64.71%, P=0.034). CONCLUSION: Warm needle therapy guided by ultrasound, in combination with meloxicam, significantly improves pain relief, physical function, inflammatory modulation, and patient satisfaction in KOA patients.
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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) | 0.000 | 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".