CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 184Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitationOsteoarthritis Treatment and MechanismsPhysical Activity and Health

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 87 of the 87 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

High-intensity versus low-intensity physical activity or exercise in people with hip or knee osteoarthritis

Open access
Regnaux, Jean-Philippe, Lefevre-Colau, Marie-Martine, Trinquart, Ludovic, Nguyen, Christelle, Boutron, Isabelle, Brosseau, Lucie, Ravaud, Philippe·2015·Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd010203.pub2PMC PMC9270723
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Exercise or physical activity is recommended for improving pain and functional status in people with knee or hip osteoarthritis. These are complex interventions whose effectiveness depends on one or more components that are often poorly identified. It has been suggested that health benefits may be greater with high-intensity rather than low-intensity exercise or physical activity. OBJECTIVES: To determine the benefits and harms of high- versus low-intensity physical activity or exercise programs in people with hip or knee osteoarthritis. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL; issue 06, 2014), MEDLINE (194 8 to June 2014) , EMBASE (198 0 to June 2014), CINAHL (1982 to June 2014), PEDro (1929 to June 2014), SCOPUS (to June 2014) and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Registry Platform (to June 2014) for articles, without a language restriction. We also handsearched relevant conference proceedings, trials, and reference lists and contacted researchers and experts in the field to identify additional studies. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomized controlled trials of people with knee or hip osteoarthritis that compared high- versus low-intensity physical activity or exercise programs between the experimental and control group.High-intensity physical activity or exercise programs training had to refer to an increase in the overall amount of training time (frequency, duration, number of sessions) or the amount of work (strength, number of repetitions) or effort/energy expenditure (exertion, heart rate, effort). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently assessed study eligibility and extracted data on trial details. We contacted authors for additional information if necessary. We assessed the quality of the body of evidence for these outcomes using the GRADE approach. MAIN RESULTS: We included reports for six studies of 656 participants that compared high- and low-intensity exercise programs; five studies exclusively recruited people with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (620 participants), and one study exclusively recruited people with hip or knee osteoarthritis (36 participants). The majority of the participants were females (70%). No studies evaluated physical activity programs. We found the overall quality of evidence to be low to very low due to concerns about study limitations and imprecision (small number of studies, large confidence intervals) for the major outcomes using the GRADE approach. Most of the studies had an unclear or high risk of bias for several domains, and we judged five of the six studies to be at high risk for performance, detection, and attrition bias.Low-quality evidence indicated reduced pain on a 20-point Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC) pain scale (mean difference (MD) -0.84, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.63 to -0.04; 4% absolute reduction, 95% CI -8% to 0%; number needed to treat for an additional beneficial outcome (NNTB) 11, 95% CI 14 to 22) and improved physical function on the 68-point WOMAC disability subscale (MD -2.65, 95% CI -5.29 to -0.01; 4% absolute reduction; NNTB 10, 95% CI 8 to 13) immediately at the end of the exercise programs (from 8 to 24 weeks). However, these results are unlikely to be of clinical importance. These small improvements did not continue at longer-term follow-up (up to 40 weeks after the end of the intervention). We are uncertain of the effect on quality of life, as only one study reported this outcome (0 to 200 scale; MD 4.3, 95% CI -6.5 to 15.2; 2% absolute reduction; very low level of evidence).Our subgroup analyses provided uncertain evidence as to whether increased exercise time (duration, number of sessions) and level of resistance (strength or effort) have an impact on the exercise program effects.Three studies reported withdrawals due to adverse events. The number of dropouts was small. Only one study systematically monitored adverse effects, but four studies reported some adverse effects related to knee pain associated with an exercise program. We are uncertain as to whether high intensity increases the number of adverse effects (Peto odds ratio 1.72, 95% CI 0.51 to 5.81; - 2% absolute risk reduction; very low level of evidence). None of the included studies reported serious adverse events. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We found very low-quality to low-quality evidence for no important clinical benefit of high-intensity compared to low-intensity exercise programs in improving pain and physical function in the short term. There was insufficient evidence to determine the effect of different types of intensity of exercise programs.We are uncertain as to whether higher-intensity exercise programs may induce more harmful effects than those of lower intensity; this must be evaluated by further studies. Withdrawals due to adverse events were poorly monitored and not reported systematically in each group. We downgra

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/14651858.cd010203.pub2

Cites

87 of 87 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

1 retracted

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Singh, 2010, Effects of Exercise Rehabilitation Programme on Osteoarthritic Knee With Special Reference to Biochemical Changes (Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Punjabi University)
  2. Kruger, 1997, The use of isokinetic systems at osteoarthritis during in-patient rehabilitation, part II - isokinetic training, Pravention Und Rehabilitation, 9, 161
  3. The Nordic Cochrane Centre, The Cochrane Collaboration Review Manager (RevMan) 2011
  4. Schünemann HJ Oxman AD Higgins JPT Vist GE Glasziou P Guyatt GH Chapter 11: Presenting results and ‘Summary of findings' tables In: Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org
  5. Schünemann HJ Oxman AD Vist GE Higgins JPT Deeks JJ Glasziou P Chapter 12: Interpreting results and drawing conclusions. In: Higgins JPT, Green S (editors). Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011 Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 184

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Regnaux, J.-P., Lefevre-Colau, M.-M., Trinquart, L., Nguyen, C., Boutron, I., Brosseau, L., & Ravaud, P.
Affiliations
  • INSERM U1153; METHODS team; Paris France
  • French Cochrane Center; Paris France
  • Hôtel-Dieu de Paris (FR)
  • Hôpital Cochin (FR)
  • Inserm (FR)
  • University of Ottawa (CA)
ORCID
Venue
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2015-10-29
Volume
2015
Issue
10
Pages
CD010203-CD010203
ISSN
  • 1361-6137 (ISSN-L)
  • 1465-1858
DOI
10.1002/14651858.cd010203.pub2
PMC
PMC9270723
OpenAlex
W2119619974
Cited by
184
References
86
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 10
FWCI
2.08
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation › Musculoskeletal pain and rehabilitation
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Rheumatology › Osteoarthritis Treatment and Mechanisms
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Physical Activity and Health
Keywords
high-intensity exercise, low-intensity exercise, knee osteoarthritis, hip osteoarthritis, physical activity, exercise intensity, pain, functional status, exercise adherence, adverse effects, knee range of motion, knee swelling, knee deformity
MeSH terms
Female, Humans, Male, Pain Measurement, Time Factors, Osteoarthritis, Hip, Program Evaluation, Exercise, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Arthralgia, Osteoarthritis, Knee, Muscle Strength

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review