PAIN MEASUREMENT AND MANAGEMENT IN PEOPLE WITH KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this thesis was to improve the understanding of pain measurement and management in people with knee OA through: 1) Developing a theoretical model that may help in pain management and measurement; 2) Exploring the knee OA individuals’ views about three pain measures and 3) To determine if low frequency (≤100 Hz) pulsed subsensory threshold electrical stimulation produced either through pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) or pulsed electrical stimulation (PES) versus sham PEMF/PES intervention is effective in improving pain and physical function in the knee OA population.</p> <p>After pain theories literature review, a theoretical model was developed to address the gap between pain theories and clinical pain measurement and management. The patient’s views about three pain measures were not explored before 96 participants were recruited and completed the Verbal Numerical Rating Scale (VNRS), Intermittent and Constant Osteoarthritis pain Questionnaire (ICOAP) and the Short Form-McGill Pain Quetionnaire-2 (SF-MPQ-2). Participants were asked how well each pain measure describes their pain on a 10 cm Visual Analogue Scale (0 = does not describe your pain at all, and 10 = describes your pain completely. The time taken to complete and score the pain measure as well as the number of errors and questions while filling the pain measures were recorded. Systematic electronic searches were performed. Duplicate title, abstract and full text screening, risk of bias assessment, data extraction and grading the quality of evidence were performed. Data analysis was performed using Revman 5 software.</p> <p>Our sample of individuals with knee OA showed that VNRS, SF-MPQ-2 and ICOAP describe knee OA pain experience with no preference of one over the others. The systematic review conclusion was that PEMF/PES may be beneficial to improve physical function but not pain in people with knee OA with low and very low quality of evidence respectively</p>