Change in functional status of patients whilst awaiting prinmary total knee arthroplasty

To investigate the effect of waiting lists on the rate of change in the functional status of patients awaiting total knee joint replacement.

The Oxford knee score, a measure of functional status, was taken both at listing for operation and just prior to surgery for 58 patients listed for total knee replacement. The distribution of scores initially and pre-operatively were found to be normally distributed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, therefore the paired t-test was used to compare the statistical significance. Waiting times were not normally distributed and the Spearmann rank correlation test was used to correlate waiting time and initial score and change in score.