Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

S.S.K. Ankara Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Hastanesi Ankara Physical disability is now a major public health problem in elderly subjects. Knee osteoarthritis is a common disease associated with significant morbidity. Quadriceps strength and knee pain are important determinants of functional impairment in elderly subjects. The relationship between knee pain and disability is more significant with increasing age. As a larger proportion of the elderly population in developed countries increasingly lives to extreme old age, osteoarthritis will be more prevalent and will be an important cause of disability in the future. Efficient, simple and reliable procedures for assessing knee pain due to osteoarthritis are needed in the evaluation of geriatric patients. As the disease is particularly disabling because of difficulty in rising from a chair, climbing stairs, standing and walking, basic components of these activities "standing on one flexed knee" and "standing on one extended knee" were chosen for assessing functional pain in this study. The level of experienced pain during the movement was evaluated by visual analogue scale, verbal pain scale and in terms of behavioral response. The efficiency and reliability of the three methods were investigated. 28 knees of 14 patients (9 female, 5 male) (mean age 61.86 ± 9.58 [range 4576]) were tested once by each investigator (first and second author). Similar significant correlation coefficients were obtained in three methods but visual analogue scale seemed a little more reliable. In clinical practice choosing the suitable procedure for individual demands will simplify the assessment. Keywords : Osteoarthritis, Knee pain, Functional pain, Pain measurement, Disability, Reliability