Patients with total knee arthroplasty do not use all of their available range of knee flexion during functional activities

摘要

Background: Recent research designed to improve outcome from total knee arthroplasty has included focus on strategies that increase the range of post-operative knee flexion. Patients with knee arthroplasty can now expect >100 degrees of knee flexion following surgery, but it is not clear whether this improved range of motion facilitates outcome or whether patients take advantage of this range when completing daily functional activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the knee flexion angles used during daily functional activities that specifically required high degrees of knee flexion. It was hypothesised that patients with greater range of passive knee flexion would achieve higher degrees of knee flexion during functional activities.