OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy of an educational physiotherapy home exercise intervention on physical improvement, pain perception, quality of life and illness behavior in patients with hemophilic arthropathy. DESIGN: A single-blind randomized study. SETTING: Home. PARTICIPANTS: 20 patients with hemophilia were randomly allocated to an educational intervention group or to a control group. INTERVENTION: The educational intervention was performed every two weeks over a 15-week period and home exercises were carried out once a day, 6 days a week, over the same period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The joint status was evaluated using the Gilbert Scale; pain was assessed with the visual analogue scale; the illness behavior was evaluated using the Illness Behavior Questionnaire; and the perceived quality of life with A36 Hemophilia-QoL questionnaire. RESULTS: We observed significant differences in the experimental group for both quality of life and illness behavior. There was no significant improvement in the joint status, however an improvement was noted in terms of perception of pain in the ankle. CONCLUSIONS: A physiotherapy program based on educational sessions and home exercises can improve the perception of pain in patients with hemophilic arthropathy of the ankle. It improves some variables in the perception of quality of life and illness behavior.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher