Introduction
Sometimes we forget where we’ve come from . . .
And if you’ve got knee osteoarthritis, chances are you are in that age group that is starting to lose a few memories here and there too! :)
So to track your progress with knee OA, it’s not a bad idea to record in detail where you are at right now. We have good tools for that!
One of the best tools is a “Patient Reported Outcome Measure” (PROM). In it’s most basic form, a PROM might be asking you to rate your average pain on a 0-10 scale (Numeric Pain Scale). But we can get much more information from a PROM that asks you multiple questions about your condition, often including various questions on pain, disability and quality of life. It’s much more informative for both of us than me as a physiotherapist just asking you ‘hey, how’s it goin’?
There are many PROMs for many different conditions, and some of them are made specifically for knee osteoart hritis. We can send you a copy that goes right into your chart if you like, or you can just fill it out right now if you want. We would suggest the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS). You can use this handy link to fill out the KOOS and have the score automatically calculated. I
Enter your name and date at the top, and once done click print page at the bottom. You can then save as a pdf, or print a copy for your records. If you are under physiotherapy care, we would suggest giving a copy of the completed KOOS to your practitioner (email pdf, or bring in copy for scanning) so they have an outcome they can monitor.
