Antigravity treadmill training after knee surgery: A scoping review

Antigravity treadmill training provides a viable option for physiotherapeutic care after knee surgery, especially for conditions that do not allow full weight bearing during the early phase post-intervention. This overview of the current state of knowledge identifies gaps and highlights areas where more research on antigravity treadmill training after knee surgery is needed. This review aimed to analyze and summarize the available evidence concerning the effects of antigravity treadmill training on patients after knee joint surgical procedures, including anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) and total (TKA) and unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA). Several databases were searched for relevant material, including PubMed, Epistemonikos, the Cochrane Library, the Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Seven studies investigating antigravity treadmill training after various procedures were included, including ACLR and TKA. The studies were summarized, and the quality of evidence was evaluated using the appropriate tools. The evidence yielded by these studies suggests that antigravity treadmill training might be useful after knee surgery. However, the superiority over traditional physiotherapeutic measures has yet to be established. Therefore, future high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are needed to investigate the effect of antigravity treadmill training due to the low quality of available evidence. Also, a cost-effectiveness analysis is required to determine whether the investigated intervention fits the purpose.