Evidence for physiotherapy provided by a comparison five published world-wide practice guidelines for knee osteoarthritis

Abstract

This review compares and summarizes the grading of recommendations in terms of physiotherapy for osteoarthritis of the knee of five world-wide guidelines: NICE 2022, AAOS 2021, VA/DoDEBPWG 2020, OARSI 2019 and ACR/AF 2019. Education, self-management, and exercise were recommended strongly or moderately as good treatments. However, thermal modalities, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, use of a brace or cane, acupuncture, massage, laser, meditation, Tai-chi, yoga and cognitive behavioral therapy had different recommendations among guidelines. Therefore, a patient registry system needs to be provided for investigating the effectiveness of physiotherapy among patients with different characteristics, and enhanced multi-institutional joint research.