Knee musculoskeletal complaint is one of the most common orthopaedic conditions seen at the specialist clinics. These conditions range from sports-related injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament tear, posterior cruciate ligament tear and patella dislocation, to degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis of the knees. At our unit, there are over 350 new patients annually with over 200 sports-injury related surgeries performed. While there are over 2000 patients on a growing waiting list for joint replacements of over 9 years, with around 200 joint replacement surgeries performed each year. This represents an increasing burden on the strained medical system. As one of the major components for the management of orthopaedic conditions, physical therapy is well-recognized for its effects on relieving knee pain and constitutes an important part of post-operatively rehabilitations. There is a need to develop a platform that can enhance the understanding of these conditions and the respective physical therapies.

An online platform providing evidence-based information on common knee conditions and physical therapies can provide the population better understanding and treatment, leading to potential symptomatic relief during the 3 years wait for an orthopaedic specialist outpatient clinic appointment.  Potentially this will reduce the number of patients needing specialist review leading to a shorter waiting time. Furthermore, the home-based exercise delivered through the platform can relieve the strained physiotherapy resources to some extent. As there is growing evidence from research that preoperative muscle function is associated with surgical outcome after TKR, this would therefore decrease the pain symptoms of the patients waiting for surgery, as well as improving the results after TKR. The proposed online platform can provide information to enhance the understanding of the patients for the importance of rehabilitation leading to an improved compliance. Also at-risk patients will be identified through online questionnaires.

Participants will experience improvement of knee pain with knee exercises. The participants who have poor knee conditions as reflected by the questionnaires, will be identified and advised to consider seeking earlier medical attention. This can reduce the number of people with severe knee conditions unattended in the community.The online platform will be introduced on social media and further disseminated by the day/elderly centres to encourage participation.

- Patients after surgeries at Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH) for sports-related injuries

- Patients after TKR at PWH

- Patients on the waiting list for TKR at PWH

- Population with knee pain in the community

2022

Healthcare, Well-being