Person-centred and Information-driven Physiotherapy for Sustainable Behaviour Change in a Digital Osteoarthritis Rehabilitation

External project members

Leif Daglberg, CMO, Joint Academy & Senior Professor, Lund University, Sweden

About the project

Living with knee osteoarthritis often means living with pain and daily limitations. Many people avoid movement out of fear of causing harm, while others push themselves until the pain worsens. When the same advice is interpreted in such different ways, the effectiveness of treatment can be lost. This is a crucial gap. Our project addresses it by developing a digital osteoarthritis program that tailors exercise and support to each person’s beliefs and activity patterns, promoting safer movement and better quality of life.

The overall aim is to develop person-centred digital tools that adapt to the individual. By gaining a deeper understanding of patients’ perspectives, we aim to design rehabilitation that strengthens self-management, reduces pain, and improves function.

The project consists of four sub-studies:

• Patient perspectives: Interviews with patients to explore different ways of understanding and relating to physical activity.
• Activity patterns: Translation and validation of the Activity Pattern Scale to identify different activity patterns.
  
• Associations between factors: Following patients in a digital osteoarthritis program, collecting data from activity trackers, psychological questionnaires, and treatment outcomes to explore associations. Analyses will focus on within-person changes over time.
• Development of new interventions: Co-creation workshops where patients, physiotherapists, psychologists, and technology developers design digital rehabilitation solutions based on the needs and barriers identified in the earlier studies.

This project may lead to a new generation of digital rehabilitation that goes beyond simply providing the “right exercises” – by also tailoring the content to each individual’s life situation.

• For patients: More personalised rehabilitation that considers both physical and psychological needs, which can reduce pain, improve mobility, and enhance quality of life.
  
• For healthcare: New tools to individualise treatment and increase the effectiveness of digital osteoarthritis programs.
  
• For society: Greater opportunities to provide equitable care, reaching people who might otherwise have limited access to support.

Project objective

The objective is to develop person-centred adaptations of digital rehabilitation for knee osteoarthritis.