a pilot randomized trial of different weekly applications of kinesthesia, balance and agility exercise program for individuals with knee osteoarthritis

Background: this pilot study was conducted to determine the feasibility of a large-scale randomized controlled trial to examine the effectiveness of different weekly applications of kinesthesia, balance and agility (kba) exercises for knee osteoarthritis (oa). methods: eighteen knee oa patients were randomly assigned to three groups of six patients: twice-weekly kba, thrice-weekly kba, and control (conventional physical therapy) for six weeks. feasibility outcomes included recruitment rate, retention/dropout rate, report of adverse events, pain (visual analog scale for pain), and physical function (ibadan knee and hip osteoarthritis outcome measure). descriptive statistics and a 3 × 2 (treatment group × time) mixed-model anova were applied to analyze the data. results: the recruitment rate was 66.6%. retention rates for the three groups ranged from 90 – 100%. no serious adverse events were reported throughout the study. pain and physical function significantly improved (p < 0.05) in all the groups post-intervention, except for the conventional physical therapy group, which showed no significant improvement in the physical function (p > 0.05). however, inter-group difference was not significant in all the clinical outcomes evaluated (all p > 0.05). conclusions: this study suggests the feasibility of a large-scale randomized controlled trial to examine the effectiveness of different weekly applications of kba exercises among knee oa individuals, with minor amendments.