Activity level and quality of life among Hungarian patients undergoing knee replacement surgery and using ActivPAL: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a very common disease in Hungary. Knee replacement surgery is the last-stage intervention for severe cases to reduce pain and improve the quality of life. Nevertheless, there is no information about the activity level of Hungarian before and after the surgery based on objective monitor. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the improvement in activity level and quality of life pre-post surgery among Hungarian patients.Methods: 10 participants (70±4 years,30.7±3.4 kg/m2) were included with knee osteoarthritis undergoing total unilateral knee replacement. The activity level was evaluated with the ActivPAL and Short form-36 before and one year after surgery.Results: Out of 10 patients, eight patients were followed up after one year of the surgery. After one year of the surgery, the activity level based on ActivPAL including the number of steps, the time of standing, the time of sitting, and the time of stepping improved between 12.3%-69.4%. The standing time and number of steps improved the most among the patients by 69.4% (p=0.041) and 12.3% (p=0.051), respectively. Requiring the questionnaire, also the overall score and the pain improved after one year by 58.3% (p=0.050) and 26.6%(p=0.47), respectively. In contrast, the physical function based on the questionnaire insignificantly improved by up to 17.6% (p=0.89).Conclusion: This is the first study in Hungary that used objective and subjective tools. The objective tool showed more improvement in physical activity than the subjective. Nevertheless, the surgery is effective in reducing pain and enhancing the activity level.