Background: Physical performance measures play an important role in the measurement of outcome in patients undergoing hip and knee arthroplasty. However, many of the commonly used measures lack information on their psychometric properties in this population. The purposes of this study were to examine the reliability and sensitivity to change of the six minute walk test (6MWT), timed up and go test (TUG), stair measure (ST), and a fast self-paced walk test (SPWT) in patients with hip or knee osteoarthritis (OA) who subsequently underwent total joint arthroplasty.
The greatest improvement occurred in the first 12 weeks after TKA. Slower improvement continued to occur from 12 weeks to 26 weeks after TKA, and little improvement occurred beyond 26 weeks after TKA. The findings can be used by physical therapists to make prognostic judgments related to the expected rate of improvement following TKA and the total amount of improvement that may be expected.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.