Acupressure for Knee Pain in Older Adults

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a leading cause of disability in the elderly and this disability is commonly attributed to knee pain. Current treatments for knee pain are only modestly efficacious, and some common treatments like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) have adverse long-term effects. Acupressure is an inexpensive and noninvasive treatment that has the potential to be a useful long-term self-management strategy for pain. Acupressure can be easily taught and is safe enough to self-apply without supervision. Participants will be randomized to three treatment groups: pain-relief acupressure, sham acupressure, and usual care (UC). The intervention will last for 8 weeks during which participants in the pain-relief and sham acupressure groups will be taught the assigned treatment by a trained research assistant who is blinded to the treatment arm, and provided with a digital video disc to aid their practice at home. The UC group will not receive training from the research team or be required to change their treatment practice.Our research team will make weekly phone calls to all three groups of participants to ask about their pain levels and any adverse events. For the two acupressure groups, the phone calls serve to support the participants' adherence to treatment. Data will be collected at baseline, mid-point (4 weeks after baseline) and the end ( 8 weeks) of the intervention. These results will help us assess the efficacy of pain-relief acupressure on knee pain in older adults, and allow us to calculate effect sizes to determine the appropriate sample size for a larger future study. Since no studies have involved older adults in self-administered acupressure, information about feasibility of and adherence to using this method in older adults would be invaluable.