title: The Effects of Traditional Chinese Exercise in Treating Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traditional Chinese exercise (TCE) includes a variety of exercise, which is being accepted by more and more people in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis (OA) from different countries. With the attendant, many clinical reports focus on it. Our meta-analysis aimed to systematically assess the effects of traditional Chinese exercise on pain, stiffness, physical function, quality of life, mental health and adverse events in people with knee osteoarthritis.
  
  
  METHODS
  PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), the Web of Science, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM) were searched from the time of their inception through April 2016 and risk of bias was independently assessed by two authors. Outcome measures included pain, physical functional, joint stiffness, quality of life, mental health and safety. For pooled outcomes, standardized mean differences (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eight randomized controlled trials with a sample size of 375 cases met the criteria to be included in the study indicating that high quality literature is lacking in this field. Results of the meta-analysis showed that short-term TCE could relieve pain (SMD: -0.77;95% CI: -1.13 to -0.41; P<0.0001), improve physical function (SMD -0.75; 95% CI: -0.98 to -0.52; P<0.00001), and alleviate stiffness (SMD: -0.56; 95%: CI -0.96 to -0.16; P<0.006), but had no significant effect on quality of life (SMD: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.17 to 0.97; P = 0.005), and mental health (SMD 4.12; 95% CI: -0.50 to 8.73; P = 0.08). Moreover, TCE was not associated with serious adverse events.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our systematic review revealed that short-term TCE was potentially beneficial in terms of reducing pain, improving physical function and alleviating stiffness. These results may suggest that TCE could prove useful as an adjuvant treatment for patients with knee OA. Further studies are urgently needed to confirm these results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yingjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lulu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Traumatology and Orthopedics College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Youxin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhengxuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhan
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yanan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation Medicine College, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No.1 Qiuyang Road, Shangjie, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xingquan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lai
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005081:Exercise Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D026441:Mind-Body Therapies; D053580:Muscle Strength; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D011788:Quality of Life; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular; D020127:Recovery of Function; D016896:Treatment Outcome