Effectiveness of Yoga Therapy with the Therapeutic Exercises on Walking Pain, Tenderness, Early Morning Stiffness and Disability in Osteoarthritis of the Knee Joint - A Comparative Study

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of yoga therapy with the therapeutic exercises in Osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee joints. Design: This was a prospective randomized active controlled trial. 250 participants with OA knees between 35-80 years (Yoga 59.56±9.54) and (Control 59.42±10.66) from the outpatient department of Ebnezar Orthopedic Center, Bengaluru, were randomly assigned to receive yoga therapy or therapeutic exercises after transcutaneous electrical stimulation and ultrasound treatment (20 minutes per day). Both the groups practised supervised interventions (40 minutes per day) for three months. 118 (yoga) and 117 (control) were available for the final analysis. Results: There were significant differences within (Wilcoxon’s, p<0.001) and between the groups (Mann Whitney ‘U’, p<0.001) on all the variables with better improvements in the yoga than the control groups. Walking pain in the yoga (37.3%, 64.9%) and control (24.9%, 42 %), joint tenderness in yoga (52.3%, 86.1%) and control (28%, 57.1%), early morning stiffness decreased more (p<0.001) in yoga (post 1=68.6% and post 2= 98.1%) than control group (post 1=38.6 %and post 2=71.6%) and knee disability in the yoga (59.7%, 83%) and control (32.7%, 53.6 %) , all improved better in the yoga than the control groups on the 15th and 90th day respectively. Conclusion: Integrated approach of yoga therapy is better than therapeutic exercises as an adjunct to transcutaneous electrical stimulation and ultrasound treatment in improving walking pain, tenderness, early morning stiffness and knee disability in patients with OA knees.