The authors report on quadriceps muscle exercises at home for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. This quadriceps muscle exercise at home consists of 20 repetitions of quadriceps femoris isometric contractions of five seconds each, and 10 repetitions of straight leg raising with 30 seconds of contraction, for a consecutive program. Patients were ordered to perform this quadriceps muscle exercise more than three times per day. A total of 52 patients (9 men with 13 arthritic knees and 43

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... en with 66 arthritic knees), who completed our quadriceps muscle exercises at home, were studied. The effect of quadriceps muscle exercise was evaluated by a point-system for degrees of pain during rest or movement, impairment of activities of daily life (ADL), and the visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain. Improvements in scores for pain, ADL and VAS were obtained, and remarkable improvement was found in patients with grade 1-3 osteoarthritis. However, the effect of quadriceps muscle exercise for patients with grade 4 and 5 was inferior to that for patients with grade 1-3. Performing our quadriceps muscle exercises at home, following education on correct methods, was an effective conservative treatment for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.