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54. Jahrestagung der Norddeutschen Orthopädenvereinigung e. V.

Norddeutsche Orthopädenvereinigung

16.06. bis 18.06.2005, Hamburg

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Improvement in function after valgus bracing of the knee

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  • corresponding author H. Meyer - Universitätskliniken, Orthopädie, Göttingen
  • W. Schultz - Göttingen

Norddeutsche Orthopädenvereinigung. 54. Jahrestagung der Norddeutschen Orthopädenvereinigung e.V.. Hamburg, 16.-18.06.2005. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2005. Doc05novEP58

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/nov2005/05nov137.shtml

Published: June 13, 2005

© 2005 Meyer et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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The use of a valgus brace can effectively relieve the symptoms of unicompartimental osteoarthritis of the knee. We studied a brace designed to decrease loads on the medial compartment in knees with chronic pain and osteoarthritis to determine if pain symptoms decreased, function improved and the plantar pressure characteristics altered during walking.

21 Patients were fitted with a commercially available brace and were evaluated after 6 and 12 weeks and after 6 months. The Larson- and Gillquist-score were used to analyze symptoms and functional limitations. The brace was worn an average of 8 hours a day, 7 days weekly. 19 of 21 patients reported immediate symptomatic improvement with less pain on walking, 8 patients reported an improved walking distance of the knee. In the plantar pressure distribution there was no difference found in the measurement with or without the brace.