Clinical Effects Observation On Knee Osteoarthritis Treated By Needle Warming Moxibustion

BackgroundKnee osteoarthritis is a kind of disease for cartilage denaturation and bone's loss or the joint edges, subchondral bone's hyperplasia. Knee osteoarthritis is most common in the elderly population, which happens in both sexes but more commonly in female. In recent years, as the growth in people's living standard and the approach of the aging society in our country, the morbidity of knee osteoarthritis has gotten an obvious rising trend. Knee osteoarthritis has been making serious effect on people's health and the quality of life.ObjectiveThis research's objective is to observe the clinical effects of knee osteoarthritis treated by needle warming moxibustion.Method60 patients with knee osteoarthritis from the outpatient and inpatient departments were chosen and randomized into two groups (the needle warming moxibustion treatment group and the simple acupuncture plus TDP control group),30 patients each group. The effect of therapy was assessed by the WOMAC osteoarthritis index, performed before treatment and after two week's treatment. Then compared the different effect of the two therapeutic methods. All data collected were analyzed with SPSS 17.0 software.Result There was no significant difference between two groups in the aspects of gender, age, course of disease, TCM syndrome differentiation and WOMAC indexes before therapy (P>0.05). This showed that two groups of sample was from one population and had comparability. As to the clinical effect, Raddit analysis showed that there was better clinical effect in the treatment group than that in the control group(P<0.05). Yet the total effective rate was 90.0% in the treatment group and 76.7% in the control group respectively, and Chi-Square analysis showed that there was no significant difference between two groups in total effective rate. As to the D-value of the WOMAC index before and after treatment, there was no significant difference on the subject of pain D-value (P >0.05), while the treatment group was significantly better than the control group on subjects of rigidity D-value, daily exercise difficulty D-value and total score D-value (P<0.05).ConclusionFor knee osteoarthritis, the clinical effect of needle warming moxibustion is better than that of simple acupuncture plus TDP, while their total effective rates are similar. These two therapies can both improve the three indexes and total score of WOMAC, so they are both effective to knee osteoarthritis. Two groups improve significantly after treatment on the subject of pain. The needle warming moxibustion treatment group was significantly better than the simply acupuncture plus TDP control group on subjects of rigidity, daily exercise difficulty and total curative effect. So the needle warming moxibustion therapy is an effective and convenient treatment for curing patients with Knee osteoarthritis.