Do Physicians Treat Symptomatic Osteoarthritis Patients Properly? Results of the AMICA Experience
Section snippets
Do Family Practitioners Follow the Recommended Guidelines for the Treatment of OA Patients Properly?
Our study only partially answers this question because of its cross-sectional design. GPs used analgesic treatment in 18% of patients, traditional NSAIDs in 45%, and Coxibs in 55%. The most frequent physical therapies prescribed by GPs were ultrasound (10%) and magnetotherapy (7%). Exercises and other passive or active rehabilitation strategies were prescribed for only 13% of the patients seen by GPs. Education, particularly the use of patient-centered options such as exercise, was not
Discussion
A number of recent guidelines have been developed for the management of knee and hip OA. The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) recommendations published in 2000 are an update of previous guidelines for hip and knee OA published in 1995 (12), which represented the consensus opinion of 8 experts who suggested a specific algorithm for OA management (4, 5). The 2000 recommendations not only refer to trials undertaken in the interim period but differ from the 1995 guidelines insofar as the
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