Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation approach for knee osteoarthritis conditions: A narrative review

Background: Knee pain is one of the most prevalent causes of musculoskeletal disorders worldwide. One of the most common causes of knee pain is osteoarthritis, especially in the elderly population. In physiotherapy management, several interventions are recommended as initial treatment for knee osteoarthritis conditions. One that has not so widely recommended and has good results in musculoskeletal cases is Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation. Purpose: This study aims to explore the application of PNF to the condition of knee osteoarthritis, which has been widely available in scientific articles in recent years. Methods: The method used in this study was narrative review which has the aim to summarize and analyze the PNF approach in osteoarthritis intervention. Result: After an extensive article search, 548 articles were found in the electronic database used. Then screening related to the title and abstract in accordance with the inclusion criteria and obtained 33 articles. After that, screening was conducted on the duplicated articles in the database, so that only 13 articles were not duplicates. Then, the accessibility of the article and the type of research were excluded, resulting in only 11 articles that will be included in the analysis of this study. Conclusion: Based on the data from 11 studies that have been discussed, it can be concluded that the treatment of knee osteoarthritis using the PNF concept dalam gave significant results in reducing pain, increasing the range of joint motion, increasing muscle strength and functional activities.