Goal Setting and Achievement in Individualized Rehabilitation of Younger Total and Unicondylar Knee Arthroplasty Patients: A Cohort Study.

Objective: To investigate activity goals, intensity and achievement of these activity goals in younger knee arthroplasty (KA) patients, and to identify the differences between total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and unicondylar knee arthroplasty (UKA) patients.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Department of orthopedic surgery and physical therapy practices.

Participants: Patients (N=48) aged 65 years or younger who underwent KA.

Intervention: Rehabilitation with goal attainment scaling (GAS).

Main Outcome Measures: GAS goals for daily life activity, work and leisure time, corresponding metabolic equivalent of task (MET) values, corrected MET values, and GAS scores at 3 and 6 months.

Results: The intensity levels of all 144 formulated activity goals were light in 16% of cases, moderate in 63%, and vigorous in 21%. Intensity levels did not differ between TKA and UKA patients. Following rehabilitation using GAS, 54% of daily life activity goals, 65% of work activity goals, and 46% of leisure time activity goals were attained after 3 months. After 6 months, 91% of daily life activity goals, 93% of work activity goals, and 89% of leisure time activity goals were attained. Goal attainment did not differ between MET intensity levels. Higher goal attainment was achieved in the UKA group (100%) compared with the TKA patients (82%) after 6 months (P<.001).

Conclusions: Younger patients aim to perform many different activities of varying metabolic intensity levels following KA. After 6 months of rehabilitation using GAS, in these patients attain 91% of their preoperatively formulated activity goals, independent of the MET intensity level. After 6 months, UKA patients attain significantly more activity goals than TKA patients. GAS might be a useful objective outcome measure in evaluating clinical outcomes of individual KA patients.