Post-operative Rehabilitation of Total Knee Arthroplasty With Applications on Smart Phone

Effect of Applications on Smart Phone on Post-operative Rehabilitation of Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Randomized Clinical Trail

This study is designed to estimate the effect of an application on rehabilitation for osteoarthritis patients after total knee arthroplasty.

Apart from surgical technique, the outcome of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) also largely depend on adequate rehabilitation and subsequent functional recovery after surgery.Rehabilitation affects or even determines various performance of post-operative knee, including knee range-of-motion (ROM), muscle strength, functional independence, all of which subsequently affect patients' quality of life. Conventional way of rehabilitation is exercise therapy, which rely on guidance of therapists and the self-efficacy of patients.

An application (APP) on smart phone was designed for people received TKA to play the role of guider and help improving patients' self-efficacy. This is a single-centre randomized clinical trial, with an anticipation of 200 patients with knee osteoarthritis enrolled, who will be randomly assigned into experiment group or control group. The patients in the experiment group will be introduced to this APP and requested to use it regularly, while the patients in the control group will receive pure conventional rehabilitation. Primary outcome includes Visual analogue scale (VAS) of pain, knee society score (KSS), ROM, ability of daily living (ADL) before operation and at 2 weeks and 6 weeks after surgery. All potential covariates of those two groups, such as age, sex, and pre-operative kellgren-lawrence scores would be matched by completely randomize.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosed as knee osteoarthritis with bearing X-ray
• Education level of middle school and above
• Prepared to take single-knee primary TKA

Exclusion Criteria:

• Severe varus/valgus (over 10 degree) of affected knee before surgery
• Stiffness of affected knee before surgery