An interventional study of Pulsed short wave in Chronic Diseases and Knee Osteoarthritis, sponsored by Irmandade da Santa Casa de Misericordia de Sao Paulo. Completed. Open to female participants aged 40 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2012-11-27.
Sponsored by Irmandade da Santa Casa de Misericordia de Sao Paulo · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
Study design: Randomized clinical trial. Objective: To evaluate the effect of PSW treatment in different doses and to compare to the control and placebo group.
Background: Several forms of conservative treatment have been the focus of many recent studies in knee osteoarthritis (OA). Among these techniques, the application of pulsed short wave has been widely used, but the optimal dose and application time still have not been well established.
Methods: One hundred and twenty-one females (average ± sd age, 60 ± 9 years), with a diagnosis of knee OA were distributed randomly into 4 groups: 35 patients who did not receive any treatment (control), 23 patients in the placebo group, 32 patients in the low dose PSW group (14.5W, 19 minutes and 17KJ), and 31 patients in the high dose PSW group (14.5W, 38 minutes and 33KJ). An 11-point numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) and "Knee Osteoarthritis Outcome Score" (KOOS) were used to assess pain and function in 3 stages: initial evaluation (pre-treatment), immediately after post-treatment, and a 12-month follow up.
Results: The 4 groups were homogeneous prior to treatment with respect to demographics, pain, and functional scales data. We demonstrated the short-term effectiveness of the PSW at low or high doses in patients with knee OA. Both treatment groups showed significant improvement in pain and function when compared to the control and placebo groups (P\<0.05). There were no differences between PSW doses, despite the fact that a low dose of PSW seems to be more effective in the long term.
Conclusion: The PSW is an effective method for pain relief, functionality, and quality of life improvement in females with knee osteoarthritis in the short-term. On the basis of our results, we recommend PSW application in the female population with knee OA. However, conclusions regarding the 12-month follow up should be analyzed carefully due to the high dropout rate.
4,398 studies on the registry are indexed under Osteoarthritis; 582 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 121 is above the median of 70 across 3,440 interventional studies indexed under Osteoarthritis.
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Exclusion Criteria:
The treatment was performed with 2 devices named Diatermed II (Carci, São Paulo, SP, Brazil), previously calibrated, carrying frequency of 27.12MHz, peak power of 250W, and pulse duration of 400µs. All these parameters are predetermined in the device according to the manufacturer. We used the maximum power provided by the machine in a pulsed form with a pulse frequency of 145Hz, resulting in a mean power of 14.5W. These settings were based on the fact that applications with mean power below 20W minimize the thermal effects
Device: Pulsed short wave
A placebo group was also established, in which the PSW device was turned on but kept in stand-by mode during 19 minutes without any electrical current being applied in the patients
Device: Pulsed short wave
The control group was composed of patients that were not submitted to any form of treatment and all patients were instructed to maintain their daily activities
The treatment was performed with 2 devices named Diatermed II (Carci, São Paulo, SP, Brazil), previously calibrated, carrying frequency of 27.12MHz, peak power of 250W, and pulse duration of 400µs. All these parameters are predetermined in the device according to the manufacturer. We used the maximum power provided by the machine in a pulsed form with a pulse frequency of 145Hz, resulting in a mean power of 14.5W.
Pain evaluation
The patients were evaluated in 3 phases: initial evaluation (pre-treatment), immediately after post-treatment, and a 12-month follow up. An 11-point numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) was used to measure pain during the last 2 days, where 0 corresponded to "no pain" and 10 corresponded to "worst imaginable pain".
Time frame: 1 year follow up
Functional evaluation
We applied a validated "Knee Osteoarthritis Outcome Score" (KOOS) as a functional evaluation.28,29 The KOOS is a specific questionnaire for patients with knee injuries and OA. It consists of 5 subscales: symptoms, daily activities, pain, recreational function, and quality of life. The answers are based on reports from the last week, where 0 corresponded to "functional impairment" with exacerbated symptoms and 100 corresponded to "normal function" without symptoms. Each subscale was normalized and analyzed individually
Time frame: 1 year follow up
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Irmandade da Santa Casa de Misericordia de Sao Paulo