Meniscal Tears And Osteoarthritis: A Case Study

Meniscal Tears and Osteoarthritis are major issues among people in the United States especially among the older demographic, usually right around the age of 45 and older. It is an issue that affects over a million US citizens, leaving many problems with pain in their legs especially around there knees. Many people who have osteoarthritis often suffer from Meniscal tears as well. With such pain among them, most people look for assistance from a doctor. With the assistance of a doctor, the patient is administered to either surgery or physical therapy depending on which option the patient chooses. Both the options in almost all cases do help improve the pain of the patient, but the question is which option is responsible for the most improvement …show more content…
They also went on to measure the average amount of pain that each group exhibited in order to see whether surgery or physical therapy was the best option for a patient experiencing a Meniscal tear as well as osteoarthritis. They went about the experiment by choosing 14,430 patients who were eligible, meaning they were 45 years or older, who had a one consistent symptom with a Meniscal tear as well as osteoarthritis. Out of the 14,430, 351 underwent the randomization. The 351 patients were then split into two groups, 174 patients were randomly assigned to surgery, and 177 patients were assigned to physical therapy. The specific groups were scheduled two to four weeks after being randomly placed into their specific group. They also allowed the physical therapy patients the option to transfer over to surgery if a surgeon felt it was necessary. Overlooking the experiment was a team of highly trained and practiced surgeons investigators as well as physical therapists. The patients who were assigned to surgery all underwent the same surgery, arthroscopic partial menisectomy. The patients who were assigned to physical therapy attended physical therapy twice a week along with home exercises, they also all did the same exercise routine that consisted of different exercises for the different stages of pain each patient experienced. At 3, 6, and 12 months questionnaires were assessed to every patient in the experiment, also at the time intervals tests were taken on every patient in the experiment tracking the amount of pain each patient felt, in order to determine which group was having the most improvement. After the twelfth month, the experiment ended and the researchers gathered the information they needed from the test