康复学报 (Feb 2021)
Dysfunction Characteristics of Knee Osteoarthritis with the Conception of"Muscles and Bones, Arthralgia and Flaccidity, Asthenia and Sthenia, Dynamic and Static, Hardness and Softness"
Abstract
Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a progressive disease, which is mainly manifested by knee joint pain, stiffness, restricted flexion and extension, joint instability, decreased motor control, and low proprioception. KOA significantly impacts an individual's overall health and quality of life. The increasing incidence rate of KOA in China indicates the importance of related rehabilitation research and practice. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) rehabilitation places an emphasis on the function and differential diagnosis, which has inherent characteristics and advantages for KOA treatment. Based on previous literature and clinical TCM knowledge of KOA dysfunction, our research team summarized KOA syndromes into five categories:"comorbidity of tendons with bones", "coexistence of arthralgia and flaccidity", "mixture of asthenia with sthenia", "imbalance between dynamic and static statuses", and"disorder between hardness and softness". At different KOA stages, the comorbidity of tendons with bones is the basic pathogenic characteristic of KOA dysfunction, which focuses on disease location and extends throughout the KOA process; coexistence of arthralgia and flaccidity, and mixture of asthenia with sthenia emphasize the basic characteristic of KOA dysfunction; imbalance between dynamic and static statuses is the main factor of KOA relapse and aggravation, which focuses on KOA etiology; disorder between hardness and softness emphasizes both syndrome and etiology, indicating the disorder between bones and tendons. TCM rehabilitation theory for KOA and serves as a reference and clinical guidance for its rehabilitation treatment. The analysis attempts to further improve the TCM rehabilitation theory for KOA and provides a reference for its rehabilitation treatment.
