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Updated: Oct 22, 2025
The Lower Body Positive Pressure Treadmill for Knee Osteoarthritis Rehabilitation
Published on: July 22, 2019
Development of a mobile application to improve exercise accuracy and quality of life in knee osteoarthritis patients:
Satit Thiengwittayaporn1, Pichayut Wattanapreechanon2, Phraew Sakon3
1Department of Orthopaedics, Faculty of Medicine Vajira Hospital, Navamindradhiraj University, 681 Samsen Rd, Bangkok, 10300, Dusit, Thailand. satitthh@hotmail.com.
Introduction:
Knee Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease that needs consistent exercise and an accurate understanding of the condition for long-term maintenance. While the accessibility of outpatient care is essential for disease management, many patients lack the resources to receive adequate healthcare. To address this challenge, we developed a not-for-profit interactive mobile application that provides a disease-specific educational background and a structured exercise regimen to patients.
Material And Methods:
"Rak Kao" (English translation: Love-Your-Knee) mobile application was designed to analyze the questionnaire data to assess the stage of knee OA and generate a personalized recommendation of treatment and exercise type using rule-based and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. A single-blinded study was conducted with patients (n = 82) who were randomly assigned to the mobile application group (M-group) and the handout group (H-group). Patient groups were controlled for age, gender, BMI, onset of pain, grade of disease, education level, and occupation. Accuracy in performance of three prescribed knee exercises (catch-bend-down, stretch-touch-feet, and sit-stretch-hold) was evaluated. Clinical outcomes were evaluated before and after the 4-weeks program to assess the range of motion, symptoms, pain, physical activity, and quality of life via the KOOS and KSS scores.
Results:
Completion of the study led to significantly more overall exercise accuracy in the M-group (76.2%) than the H-group (52.5%). Activities of daily life, quality of life, ability to do sports and recreational activities were significantly more improved in the M-group than the H-group (p < .01). No difference in the range of motion between groups. Satisfaction of patients' experience was higher in the M-group than the H-group (p = .001) after the 4-week regimen.
Conclusions:
With the better accuracy and outcomes for rehabilitation in the M-group than the H-group, we strongly recommend using our mobile application as a better alternative than handouts for exercises and information for patients with knee OA.
Trial Registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03666585.
