Health-related quality of life in rehabilitation of osteoarthritis of the lower limb: Measurement methods

Exercise therapy plays a major role in the rehabilitation of osteoarthritis of the lower limb. Patients-oriented variables are decisive as outcomes today. One of them is health-related quality of life, which is recommended by international consensus to be assessed in patients with osteoarthritis. For the measurement of health-related quality of life, a great body of instruments exists: On the one hand generic and on the other hand disease-specific instruments. For their comparison and the right choice of an assessment instrument, the International Classification of Function, Disability and Health (ICF) can be chosen. For some major diseases, so called "Core Sets" exist, which include those ICF categories that are of importance for this indication. Comparing the content of measurement tools, used with osteoarthritis of the lower limb, one should check whether they capture the Core Set for the respective indication. At the moment the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36) and modified versions of it, and the Indicators of Reha-Status (IRES-3) are commonly used in rehabilitation research to capture health-related quality of life. For an assessment in osteoarthritis, the disease-specific Instruments Western Ontario and McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and Lequesne Index are of great relevance. Measuring health-related quality of life with patients who suffer from osteoarthritis of the lower limb, one should use a combination of a generic and a disease-specific instrument.