Effectiveness of Glucosamine Therapy Upon Selected Symptoms of Osteoarthritis

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common chronic degenerative joint disease. It is one of the recognized causes of disability among elderly. Glucosamine is a nutritional supplement which has recently emerged as an alternative treatment option for clients with osteoarthritis to reverse or stop the progress of the disease. Theaim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of glucosamine therapy upon selected symptoms of osteoarthritis among geriatric clients in selected old age homes. A true experimental research design was adopted, and 60 participants were selected using simple random sampling technique, out of which 30 were randomly assigned to control group and 30 clients to experimental group. The data was collected using four point categorical verbal rating pain scale and Lequesne osteoarthritis index scale. The data was statistically analyzed, and the results revealed thatthe joint pain levels in the experimental group (M=2.83, SD=1.23) and level of selected symptoms (M=12.33, SD=2.19) after the therapy was low, compared to those before the therapy (M=6.53, SD=1.41) & (M=14.23, SD=2.61) respectively. The difference was found to be statistically significant at p<0.001, which attributes to the effectiveness of glucosamine therapy.