Article

We hypothesized that self-administered action observation treatment
can increase the effectiveness of inpatient rehabilitation of patients after a
primary total knee replacement. DESIGN: A pilot randomized controlled trial.
SETTING: Thirty-one inpatients, admitted to our Physical and Rehabilitation
Medicine Department. SUBJECTS: After a primary total knee replacement were
randomly assigned to either an experimental ( n=14) or control
( n=17) group.
INTERVENTION: All subjects received conventional physiotherapy and were required
to perform additional self-administered exercises explained in a written
informative brochure. Subjects in the experimental group were asked to watch a
video showing a person exercising whilst the control group watched a nature video
without exercises being shown. MAIN OUTCOMES MEASURE: Changes in Visual Analogue
Scale, active and passive range of motion of knee, Barthel index, Short Form-36
Health Survey, Tinetti scale, Lequesne index measurements. RESULTS: At the end of
the intervention period, the increase of the active range of motion over the
active flexion and extension in the experimental group was higher than in the
control group; the difference between groups was 15.6 degrees (95%CI 5.3-24.8)
and 3.4 degrees (95%CI 1.1-5.6), for active flexion and active extension
respectively; between-group effect sizes were large at post-treatment period
(d>1.3). CONCLUSIONS: adding action observation training to conventional
inpatient physiotherapy is associated with a greater degree of recovery in
patients who have undergone a primary total knee replacement.

Langue : ANGLAIS