RESEARCH ARTICLE
Quality of Life in Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis: A Commentary on Nonsurgical and Surgical Treatments
Jack Farr II1, Larry E. Miller2, 3, Jon E. Block*, 3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 619
Last Page: 623
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-619
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010619
Article History:
Received Date: 19/8/2013Revision Received Date: 8/10/2013
Acceptance Date: 16/10/2013
Electronic publication date: 13/11/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) has a significant negative impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Identification of therapies that improve HRQoL in patients with knee OA may mitigate the clinical, economic, and social burden of this disease. The purpose of this commentary is to report the impact of knee OA on HRQoL, describe the change in HRQoL attributable to common knee OA interventions, and summarize findings from clinical trials of a promising therapy. Nonsurgical therapies do not reliably modify HRQoL in knee OA patients given their general inability to alleviate physical manifestations of OA. Surgical knee OA interventions generally result in good to excellent patient outcomes. However, there are significant barriers to considering surgery, which limits clinical utility. Therapies that most effectively control OA-related pain with a low risk: benefit ratio will likely have the greatest benefit on HRQoL with greater rates of patient adoption. Initial clinical trial findings suggest that less invasive joint unloading implants hold promise in bridging the therapeutic gap between nonsurgical and surgical treatments for the knee OA patient.
