Abstract
This paper describes the experimental results of new heating methods for treating osteoarthritis (OA) inside a knee using a resonant cavity applicator. OA is a common musculoskeletal disorder that causes pain, stiffness, swelling, and loss of function in a joint, hi the previous study, a resonant cavity applicator for thermal therapy of OA was proposed. Experimental results of temperature distributions when using the resonant cavity applicator and using microwave diathermy systems were discussed. However, a knee gap is very close when OA is progressing. It is not easy to heat the affected part of the human knee. For an effective treatment of OA, the deep seated joint cavity region in the human knee must be heated between approximately 36 and 38 ℃. In this study, a more useful method of resonant cavity applicator was developed for OA with keeping stress on leg to widen knee gap. From the results of computer simulations, it was found that the proposed heating method is useful for treating OA inside a knee joint.
