Knee Joint Osteoarthritis in Retired Professional Athletes and Non- athletic Persons

Physical activities have been recently recommended for the prevention of some chronic diseases such as osteoarthritis. However, the detrimental effects of severe physical activity on musculoskeletal system of athletes are still under debate. The current study aimed to compare the following parameters between retired professional athletes and non-athletic persons; radiographic grading scales of osteoarthritis of the knee joint, arthralgia, musculoskeletal dysfunctions during excercise, daily living or recreation activities, and life quality.

In this cross-sectional study, 60 retired professional sportsmen aged 50-65 years involved in football, wrestling, and track and field sports with the same number of age-matched non-athletic controls were included. The participants were then divided into four equal groups of 15. The gathering data tools were as follows; Clinical diagnosis and radiological findings confirmed by an orthopedic surgeon. The globalized and localized questionnaire of Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) was used as the data gathering tool. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post Hoc (Tuky) test were used to analyze the data.

The four above-mentioned groups had a significant difference regarding the following parameters; radiographic grading scales of the knee osteoarthritis (p=0.001), knee pain (p<0.001), symptoms (p<0.001), dysfunction in daily living (p<0.001) recreational activities (p<0.001) and quality of life (p<0.001). Groups of football, wrestling, track and field sports and non- athletic persons had a higher score than the average in radiographic grading scales of knee osteoarthritis respectively, while they possessed a lower score for the other variables.

Professional sports may cause a higher risk of knee osteoarthritis particularly in sports which required a combination of strength and endurance activities than the endurance only sports.