Health and Risk Factors in Patients With Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis

Plain-language summary

Hip and knee osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of global disability. There is no cure for the disease, but research and guidelines recommends that patients with osteoarthritis, early after the diagnosis, receive individually adapted physical exercises, information about their disease and about self-management and, if needed, recommendations on weight loss as a core treatment to prevent disability and impairment in health. This core treatment improves symptoms in osteoarthritis by reducing pain and increasing function, and have the potential to delay replacement surgery. In Sweden, core treatment has since 2008, been standardized in a supported self-management programme and evaluation and follow-ups are registered in the National Quality Register BOA (Better management of patients with OsteoArthritis). The course of deterioration in pain and physical functioning among different individuals with osteoarthritis is currently difficult to predict. Factors such as socioeconomic status and comorbidity contribute to progression of the disease, but are not fully established. There is a need for early identification of individuals who have a good prognosis with slow disease development and those that should be recommended joint replacement surgery in the future. Overriding aim of the study is to increase knowledge about the population who has received education and supervised exercises as a core treatment for hip and knee osteoarthritis and been registered in the BOA Register and to identify factors that can predict long-term outcome for this population.

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