The effects of therapeutic exercise on the balance of women with knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review was to examine evidence regarding the effects of therapeutic exercise on the balance of women with knee osteoarthritis (OA).

METHODS: The search was conducted in Pubmed, Medline, Lilacs, SciELO, ISI web of knowledge, PEDro and the Cochrane Collaboration. We used the keywords: "knee", "balance", "women" and "rehabilitation" in combination with "osteoarthritis". We selected randomized controlled clinical trials published in English, Portuguese and Spanish over the last 10 years. To verify the methodological quality of selected clinical trials, the PEDro Scale was applied.

RESULTS: A total of 20 studies were found in the electronic search. Of these, only 9 met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in full. Eight of these 9 studies were classified as having high methodological quality on the PEDro Scale. Although the methods and interventions regarding balance varied widely in these studies, most found significant improvement in the balance of women with knee OA.

CONCLUSION: Since the studies included in this systematic review were of high methodological quality, we can conclude that the therapeutic exercises they used improved the balance of women with knee OA.