Alternatives to Knee Braces

Knee braces continue to be a widely utilized piece of medical equipment, ranging from simple over the counter sleeves to more complex functional braces, with the ability to provide electrical stimulation to muscle groups. Despite their popularity, alternatives to knee braces exist for patients who find braces to be ineffective, uncomfortable, cumbersome, or overly expensive. While high-quality studies are lacking for modalities such as neoprene sleeves, compression stockings, and kinesiotaping, there is promising evidence that these interventions can confer an element of stability and pain relief for a variety of knee pathologies both with regard to acute and chronic injuries as well as in the postoperative rehabilitation period. While no “holy grail” exists for the ideal brace, or bracing alternative, it is important for providers to be aware of the options available to patients as well as the current evidence for these various modalities, so that the provider can best guide musculoskeletal care.

EFFECTIVENESS OF KNEE BRACES IN THE TREATMENT OF KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS : AN EVIDENCE BASED CASE REPORT

Introduction: Osteoasthritis is a degenerative joint disease characterized by boney inflammation. Thetreatment goals are to reduce physical symptoms and to improve quality of life through exercises,biomechanical interventions, and pharmacological management.Objectives: To find out the effectiveness of knee braces compared to no treatment or otherconservative treatment for improving the quality of life in patients with knee osteoarthritis.Methods: Literatures were taken from OVIDMedline®, EBMreviews®, and Cochrane®. Threesystematic reviews were selected and critically appraised using standard criteria for interventionresearch.Results: Two systematic reviews had acceptable validity, while another systematic review neededfurther improvement for the methodological quality. High heterogeneity was shown from all reviews.Knee braces is considered as applicable based on the appraisal. One systematic review did notrecommend the use of knee braces for patients without any specific conditions.Discussion: All results stated that knee braces could improve clinical symptoms and quality of lifewithout any serious adverse events. The superiority of knee braces compared to other conservativetreatment and/or no treatment still remained as a question due to inconclusive evidences. Differenttypes of knee braces showed different effectiveness to different types of osteoarthritis, which may alsocontributed to high heterogeneity.Conclusion: 1) In patients with knee osteoarthritis, the use of knee braces can improve thequality of life. 2) It is inconclusive whether knee braces are more effective to improve thequality of life of patients with knee osteoarthritis compared to other conservative treatment.

Offloader knee braces for knee osteoarthritis

INTRODUCTION Knee osteoarthritis is a relevant health problem given its high prevalence and associated disability. Within the non-pharmacological management alternatives, the use of offloader knee braces has been proposed, however, there is no consensus in the literature regarding its indication. METHODS We searched in Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS We identified 14 systematic reviews including nine studies overall, all of which were randomized trials. We conclude that the use of offloader knee braces in patients with knee osteoarthritis probably increases physical function through walking distance. However, its use may make little or no difference to physical function measured with the Hospital for Special Surgery Knee score, it may slightly worsen the quality of life and increase adverse events, but the certainty of the evidence is low. In addition, we are uncertain whether the use of offloader knee braces reduces pain as the certainty of the evidence has been assessed as very low.

Offloader knee braces for knee osteoarthritis

INTRODUCTION Knee osteoarthritis is a relevant health problem given its high prevalence and associated disability. Within the non-pharmacological management alternatives, the use of offloader knee braces has been proposed, however, there is no consensus in the literature regarding its indication. METHODS We searched in Epistemonikos, the largest database of systematic reviews in health, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, among others. We extracted data from the systematic reviews, reanalyzed data of primary studies, conducted a meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS We identified 14 systematic reviews including nine studies overall, all of which were randomized trials. We conclude that the use of offloader knee braces in patients with knee osteoarthritis probably increases physical function through walking distance. However, its use may make little or no difference to physical function measured with the Hospital for Special Surgery Knee score, it may slightly worsen the quality of life and increase adverse events, but the certainty of the evidence is low. In addition, we are uncertain whether the use of offloader knee braces reduces pain as the certainty of the evidence has been assessed as very low.