Comparison the Effect of Rehabilitation at Home and Outpatient Physiotherapy after Total Knee Arthroplasty Surgery on Quality of Life and Knee Function: A Clinical Trial Study

Abstract

Background: Primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is an effective procedure to better function and relief the pain in advanced osteoarthritis patients. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of outpatient clinic-based setting of physiotherapy versus home-based rehabilitation (HBR) for functional recovery immediately after primary TKA procedure. Materials and Methods: This randomized clinical trial study was conducted on patients underwent TKA in 2021–2022. Participants were randomly allocated to either “usual care” or a “home-based rehabilitation” in a 1:1 ratio. The primary outcome measurement of this study was the Knee Society Score (KSS). The secondary outcome was patient quality of life using the 36-item Short Form Survey Instrument (SF-36). Data were entered into the SPSS software 25 and analyzed. Results: In this study, 80 patients who underwent TKA in equal proportion in two outpatient physiotherapy (36 women; average age 64.37 ± 5.12 years) and home rehabilitation (33 women; average age 62.4 ± 4.87 years) groups were examined. The findings our study showed that after the intervention (3 and 5 months after the operation), there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the quality of life (total score) (P > 0.05). KSS had no significant difference between the two groups (P > 0.05). Conclusion: This randomized controlled trial found no significant differences in the outcomes of rehabilitation using either a HBR or a traditional outpatient physiotherapy model.