Laurie's Blogs.

I pulled this literature review from the Four Leg News 2 (1), 2013.  I thought it would be good to share with everyone!  

Cheers!  Laurie

Jigami H, Sato D, Tsubaki A et al. (2012)  Effects of weekly and fortnightly therapeutic exercise on physical function and quality of life in individuals with hip osteoarthritis. J Orthop Sci 17(6): 737 – 744. 

Study: 36 women with diagnosed hip osteoarthritis were divided into two groups depending upon the frequency of therapeutic exercise (weekly or fortnightly).   Land based exercises and aquatic exercises were performed on the same day for 10 sessions with each group.   All exercise was physical therapist supervised.  Land based exercise consisted of a 5-minute warm up, 20 minutes of muscle strengthening, 5 minutes of single-leg standing, and 10 minutes of muscle stretching, followed by 30 minutes of rest and drinking water.  This regimen was followed by the aquatic exercise: 5 minutes of warm up, 15 minutes of walking in the pool, 5 minutes of muscle strengthening, 5 minutes of single-leg standing, 5 minutes of whole-body coordination, and 5 minutes of muscle relaxation.

Muscle strength of the lower extremity, "timed up and go" (TUG), time of one-leg standing with open eyes (TOLS), Harris Hip Score, and scores of the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form-36 questionnaire, were measured before and after interventions. 

Results:  The women who exercised weekly had significant improvement on lower-extremity muscle strength for all muscles as compared to the fortnightly exercise group, which had no significant changes.  Both groups demonstrated significant improvement in the TUG and TOLS tests after interventions. 

Clinical Relevance: 

This study has high clinical relevance (in humans… and therefore should matter for animals too).  Functional objective outcome measures were used, and an intervention strategy was employed that could directly impact clinical practice.  We could all use this study to justify advocating for a weekly, targeted, supervised exercise intervention for any patient (human or animal) with hip osteoarthritis.