Kayla Scott

Chawkat

IR PD3

9 November 2017

Osteoarthritis

Fisher, N. M., & Pendergast, D. R. (1991). Muscle Rehabilitation: Its Effect on Muscular and

Functional Performance of Patients with Knee Osteoarthritis. ​Archives of Physical

Medicine and Rehabilitation​, ​72​(6), 367-374. Retrieved from:

http://www.archives-pmr.org/article/0003-9993(91)90168-I/pdf​.

This academic journal explores new methods to treat patients with osteoarthritis,

particularly patients with osteoarthritis in the knees, with new methods of physical therapy using

a specifically prescribed muscular rehabilitation program that increases muscle strength,

endurance, and the speed of muscle contraction which then allowed the physical therapists to

assess the effects of these changes on functional performance for patients. Osteoarthritis is a

type of arthritis that reduces functional performance, strength, and aerobic power most

commonly in elderly patients. The journal explains that the most commonly used ways of

aerobic treatment, although effective in decreasing pain, do not increase muscular function. This

experiment found that over the course of 8 months of treatment, the 11 subjects who completed

the course of treatment had increased muscular function with the new methods of treatment by

23-40% by the standards of the ANOVA test.

 Nadine Fisher, the leading writer of this journal, has a Masters of Education in Exercise

Science from the University of Buffalo, and can be contacted at ​nfisher@buffalo.edu​ or at ​(716)

829-6724. She is the director of the Rehabilitation Physiology Laboratory and the Rehabilitation

Science PhD program in the Department of Rehabilitation Science. She also clinical associate

professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science, and the Department of Physiology and

Biophysics, all qualifying her to write this academic journal. This article was written in 1991,

however the new way of therapy the lab was researching is now a very helpful way to

rehabilitate patients with osteoarthritis, and is relevant to learning about how their new method

of rehabilitation works better than the more common aerobic ways, and how to make a better or

more developed path of treatment. This article can be corroborated with newer research from

2017 in ​Women’s Health Update:Treatments for Osteoarthritis. ​This article states that

Osteoarthritis is extremely common in the knees, and although not researching the same type of

treatment, they state that the aerobic ways of treatment are not as effective anymore, proving that

a new method of treatment is necessary. This academic journal has extremely thick and deep

coverage. They explain what osteoarthritis is and who it affects most popularly in detail, and

explains the new methods of treatment with hard data. They also explain how this data shows

that their new method of treatment can be crucial to fixing the problems that aerobic ways of

treatment have, which is not increasing muscular function in the patients. Also, the authors do

not show any bias, considering that the article is a professional, academic journal. They show

how their findings could have been skewed by specific things, but then address how they avoided

these possible impurities in the research. Then they go on to tell the readers about the people who

have dropped out of their experiment instead of hiding it and making the research seem 100%
perfect, which once again avoids any bias. It is clear that this article is written for physical

therapists and doctors, specifically physical therapists and doctors with a profession in

osteoarthritis treatments. The style and vocabulary of the journal was very fitting to a

professional, wise, audience. The purpose is to create a new, more effective way of treating and

helping patients with this muscular disease, that helped the problems the normal, aerobic ways of

rehabilitation do not fix, and to inform the audience of doctors and physical therapists about this

new method.