Investigation of the Effects of Progressive Resistance Exercises in Individuals With Knee Osteoarthritis

It is known that the global socioeconomic burden of individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA) is on a constantly rising curve. In addition, it is predicted that this burden will increase with the increase in the aging rate of countries. While the evidence level of exercise in the treatment of individuals with knee OA is at A level, a standard exercise program has still not been established for these individuals. One of the most important elements in establishing a standard exercise protocol can be realized by understanding how exercise provides positive effects in these individuals. Today, the gold standard practice used in examining the effectiveness of treatments such as exercise is the follow-up of biomarkers. However, for this purpose, biological fluids (blood, urine, synovial fluid) samples are not taken from individuals with knee OA during routine health controls. Existing laboratory detection methods, especially ELISA analysis, are very detailed, time-consuming and expensive, among the reasons why they cannot be included in routine clinical practice. This situation makes it difficult to examine which biomarkers the exercise programs applied in individuals with knee OA have an effect on and to establish a standard exercise protocol. Therefore, the number of randomized controlled studies examining this issue is very few in the literature, and this number is much less in Turkey. The researchers aimed to create a standard home-based exercise program by examining the effects of the holistic exercise approach for all lower extremity muscles, which the researchers created considering the EMG studies in the literature for individuals with knee OA and the age group to be included in the study, both at the physical (pain, functional status, quality of life) and biochemical level (inflammatory biomarkers that have not been examined together before and whose relationship with OA has been newly discovered).