ANALYSIS OF PROPRIOCEPTION IN PRIMARY ARTHRITIC KNEES

Knee is a common site of osteoarthritis possibly because it is often subject to trauma. Primary knee osteoarthritis has no known etiology while secondary osteoarthritis can be traced to abnormal joint mechanics. Actually, osteoarthritis may be a physiologic response to repetitive, longitudinal impulse loading of the joint. Knee proprioception derives from the integration of afferent signals from receptors in the muscles, tendons, joint capsule, ligaments, meniscal attachments and skin. Muscles and joint receptors are the major sources of joint propriception. In patients with knee osteoarthritis both muscle weakness and joint laxity cause proprioceptive impairment. Because of different roles of mechanoreceptors in detecting proprioception in different angles of joint, researchers decided to measure knee proprioception with active and passive reproduction angle methods in different joint angles of knee. The purpose of the present study was to determine 1) if proprioceptive acuity correlated with different knee angles, 2) if there was any significant difference between the measurements of active and passive reproduction angles. In this study 30 subjects with primary knee osteoarthritis(mean age 59.8, range 50-65) were selected through non probability sampling. An electrogoniometer was used for evaluation of proprioception. Also, knee joint proprioception was assessed with both active and passive reproduction angle techniques. Based on the obtained results, individuals with knee arthritis were significantly less able to detect terminal range of active and passive extension of knee than the initial range(P<0.05). The results also showed that there was no significant difference in the measurements of threshold for the detecion of active and passive motions.