LAUSR

Background Most rehabilitation programs are hospital-based and rely on regular supervision (1). However, mobile health technologies such as smartphone applications may provide lower-cost ways to monitor and train the patients (2). We have developed a mobile-phone application for monitoring and training the patients at home. Objectives The purpose of this study was to compare a mobile-phone-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program to a brochure-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program in patients with knee osteoarthritis. We hypothesized that the patients who received mobile-phone-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program over 3 weeks would have better balance, quality of life and less pain and disability score versus the patients who received brochure-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program. Methods This was a randomized, prospective, comparative clinical study. The study included 40 patients, aged 4565 years, who diagnosed with a grade 2-3 knee osteoarthritis. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. While one group (n=20) received a mobile-phone-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program, the second group (n=20) received a brochure-based home exercise training program along with supervised physiotherapy program as 15 sessions for a total of three weeks, five sessions per week. Pain intensity, balance, disability, and quality of life were measured with Visual Analogue Scale, Berg Balance Scale, WOMAC, and SF-36, respectively. All of the assessments procedures were performed again after the treatment. Results There were statistically significant improvements in measures of pain intensity, balance, disability, and quality of life between pre- and post treatment in both groups (p<0.05). However, no significant differences were found in any of patient outcome variables between the groups (p>0.05). Conclusion We could report that mobile-phone-based home exercise training program is not superior to brochure-based home exercise training program in terms of patient outcomes over 3-week program. References [1] Wang CH, Chou PC, Joa WC, et al. Mobile-phone-based home exercise training program decreases systemic inflammation in COPD: a pilot study. BMC Pulm Med. 2014Aug30;14:142. [2] Persell SD, Karmali KN, Stein N, et al. Design of a randomized controlled trial comparing a mobile phone-based hypertension health coaching application to home blood pressure monitoring alone: The Smart Hypertension Control Study. Contemp Clin Trials. 2018Oct;73:92-97. Disclosure of Interests None declared