Rashid SA, Hussain ME, Bhati P, Veqar Z, Parveen A, Amin I, Rashid SM. Muscle activation patterns around knee following neuromuscular training in patients with knee osteoarthritis: secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.
Arch Physiother 2022;
12:19. [PMID:
35799287 PMCID:
PMC9264689 DOI:
10.1186/s40945-022-00140-7]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Accepted: 05/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Objective
To compare the effects of neuromuscular training (NMT) to a quadriceps strength training (QT) program on co-contraction index (CCI) of knee muscles in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Methods
Sixty-six knee OA patients with varus malalignment were recruited from the physiotherapy outpatient department of the university. After baseline measurements, they were randomly assigned into two groups: NMT (n = 33) and QT (n = 33). Patients in NMT group received neuromuscular exercises whereas QT group received conventional strengthening exercises for a period of 12 weeks, three times per week. Electromyographic (EMG) activity of quadriceps, hamstring and gastrocnemius muscle was evaluated during treadmill walking before and after 12 weeks of intervention period and CCI of medial quadriceps-medial hamstring (med QH), lateral quadriceps-lateral hamstring (lat QH), medial quadriceps-medial gastrocnemius (med QG) and, lateral quadriceps and lateral gastrocnemius (lat QG) was calculated.
Results
There was a significantly greater reduction in CCI of med QH (p = 0.02) and lat QH (p = 0.01) in the NMT group than the QT group. Whereas both NMT and QT led to statistically similar reductions in CCI of med QG (p = 0.08) and lat QG (p = 0.66).
Conclusion
Findings of this study suggest that NMT led to a greater reduction in CCI of knee muscles than QT which indicates that enhanced sensori-motor control attained by NMT could reduce knee loading in knee OA patients with varus malalignment.
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