Struggling with knee pain? We’d like to hear from you!

Study Title: Developing an App Which Will Empower Patients to Self-Diagnose and Manage Knee Osteoarthritis

Study dates: 

2018-2022

Why do this research?

For people with knee osteoarthritis, early diagnosis and intervention before damage is advanced makes a difference. At this stage, the key to treatment is exercise, weight management, and use of the safest pain medication.

Alarmingly, studies in Ontario and British Columbia have shown that the majority diagnosed with knee osteoarthritis are not getting the right advice, and worse still, many who are seeing a physician are not being diagnosed quickly enough, or not diagnosed at all.

We have previously developed and tested a questionnaire and a mobile app, Arthritis ID, to assist a person with knee pain to know they have knee osteoarthritis with a 95 per cent certainty. It can detect people with x-ray evidence of knee OA, but also those with very early disease (i.e., normal x-rays and only mild changes on MRI). We have also developed free online/mobile apps – OPEN and FitViz, for people to self-manage their knee osteoarthritis. Currently, the three apps act independently of each other with each serving a distinct function and providing a different user experience. However, they also share a number of overlapping functions (both Arthritis ID and OPEN offer educational materials; OPEN and Fitviz have similar physical activity goal-setting functions).

Using these apps in their current state is cumbersome and hindering their uptake. By combining these apps into a new super-app, we will empower patients to take charge and prevent disabling pain, and improve care to a gold standard level.

What will be done?

The KneeOA app will combine three apps (Arthritis ID, OPEN, and FitViz) into one. Participants will be screened and, if eligible, will be given full access to the app. The knee health app will provide education about knee pain and osteoarthritis, it will help guide participants in setting their activity goals, give tips on how to be active, and provide suggestions on local facilities via Google Maps. Participants will be asked to look at their activity levels at least once a week for 12 weeks. At the end of the 12 weeks, participants will be asked if they would participate in a virtual interview by phone or Zoom video conference to go over their experiences with the KneeOA app.

Who is on the research team?

Principal Investigators:

Linda Li PT, PhD (UBC)
Arthritis Research Canada Senior Scientist

John Esdaile MD, MPH, FRCPC, FCAHS (UBC)
Arthritis Research Canada Scientific Director Emeritus

Co-investigators:

Chris Shaw MSc, PhD (SFU), Jolanda Cibere MD, FRCPC, PhD (Arthritis Research Canada & UBC), Gillian Hawker MD, MSc (Women’s College Hospital & UoT) , Hui Xie MS, PhD (Arthritis Research Canada & SFU)

Research Staff

Smruthi Ramachandra, Research Trainee, Arthritis Research Canada