The Effects of Artificial Balneotherapy on Osteoarthritis

인공 온천수가 퇴행성 슬관절염에 미치는 효과

The purpose of this study was to evaluate effects of artificial balenotherapy on the with degenerative osteoarthritis were selected as the subject do this study among the patients with degenerative osteoarthritis having pains in their knees by the criteria of America Rheumatoid Association. And the randomly selected ten patients out of the twenty were classified as an artificial balenotherapy group and the other the Patients were in a control group. Ten individuals with degenerative osteoarthritis patients in the artificial balenotherapy group Participated in artificial balenotherapy Program four weeks from March 1st, 2003 to March 31st, 2003 in Daegu 00 hospital. Ten individuals with degenerative osteoarthritis in the control group did not receive Artificial Balenotherapy. The conclusions were as follows: 1. After 4 weeks of therapy, the score of WBC(p < 0.01), RBC(p < 0.01), HTC(p < 0.01) in the artificial blalenotherapy group were significantly decreased, compared with their scores in pre-intervention. 2.In the balenotherapy group, significantly increase $Na^{+}$ ion(P < 0.05), decrease K ion(p < 0.01), unchanged Cl ion scores were found, compared with their scores in pro-intervention. 3. The result of the substudy about the effects of artificial balenotherapy on the substances that have relations with the function of liver were following that artificial balenotherapy group, increased total bilirubin(P < 0.01), unchanged total Protein, Albumin, total cholesterol, GOT, GPT, ALP were found, compared with their score in pre-intervention. 4. The result of the substudy about the effects of artificial balenotherapy on the substances that have relations with the function of kidney were following that in the artificial balenotherapy group, reduced BUN(P < 0.05), and increased creatine were found. 5. The result of the substudy about effects of artificial balenotherapy on the knee pain visual analog score, knee's functional score, ADL score were following that in the artificial balenotherapy group, decreased VAS score(P < 0.05), increased ADL score(p < 0.01), unchanged knee's functional score were founf, compared with their scores of the pre-intervention. In conclusion, the result of this study suggest that artificial balenotherapy improved ADL score and reduced knee pain visual analog score of the patients with degenerative osteoarthritis. The result proposed that appropriate use of artificial balenotherapy improves the degenerative osteoarthritis