Kristin Walker, Utah State University
Health
The purpose of this study was to quantify the efficacy of a six-week aquatic treadmill exercise program on measures of pain, balance, mobility, and muscle thickness. Three participants (age = 64.5 ± 10.2) with knee OA completed a six-week exercise training intervention. Outcome measures, collected before (pre) and after (post) the six-week intervention, included visual analog scales for pain, posturography for balance, a 10 m walk test for mobility, and ultrasound for muscle thickness. The exercise protocol included balance training and high-intensity interval training (HIT) in an aquatic treadmill using water jets to destabilize while standing and achieve high ratings of perceived exertion (14-19) while walking. Expected results include, reduced joint pain (pre = 50.3 ± 24.8 mm versus post = 15.8 ± 10.6 mm), improved balance (equilibrium pre = 66.6 ± 11.0 versus post = 73.5 ± 7.1), and mobility (walk pre = 8.6 ± 1.4 s versus post = 7.8 ± 1.1 s) after participating in the exercise protocol (p = 0.03-0.001). We expect that aquatic treadmill exercise that incorporates balance and HIT training will be well tolerated by patients with OA and may be effective at managing symptoms of OA.