Home-based vs supervised rehabilitation programs following knee surgery: a systematic review

Following knee surgery, rehabilitation can dramatically affect the postoperative course and the final outcomes of the procedure. We systematically reviewed the current literature comparing clinical outcomes of home-based and outpatient supervised rehabilitation protocols following knee surgery.

We searched Medline, CINAHL, Embase, Google Scholar, The Cochrane Library and SPORTDiscus. The reference lists of the previously selected articles were then examined by hand. Only studies comparing clinical outcomes of patients who had undergone knee surgery followed by different rehabilitation programs were selected. Then the methodological quality of each article was evaluated using the Coleman methodology score (CMS), a 10-criterion scoring list assessing the methodological quality of the selected studies.

Eighteen studies were evaluated in the present review. Three were retrospective studies. The remaining 15 studies were prospective randomized clinical trials. The supervised and home-based protocols did not show an overall significant difference in the outcomes achieved within the studies reviewed. The mean CMS was 77.2.

The heterogeneity of the rehabilitation protocols used in the studies reviewed makes it difficult to draw definite conclusion on the subject.

Supervision and location does not seem to directly determine the final outcomes. Numerous variables, including comorbidities and motivation, could influence the results and deserve to be accounted for in future investigations.

Better designed studies are needed to show a clear superiority of one rehabilitation approach over another and its applicability to the various surgical procedures involving the knee.