Role of physical therapy in adult chronic non-bacterial osteitis: patients’ and therapists’ perspectives

Figures & data

Figure 1. Overview of the study inclusion process. CNO, chronic non-bacterial osteitis; EHR, electronic health record; PT, physical therapy.

Figure 2. Use of physical therapy (PT) in adult chronic non-bacterial osteitis among responding patients (total n = 80). IQR, interquartile range.

Table 1. Patient characteristics of recent physical therapy (PT) users and non-recent PT users.

	Recent PT users (n = 41)	Non-recent PT users (n = 39)	Mean difference (95% CI)	p
Sociodemographic characteristics
Sex, female	40 (100)	35 (90)	–	0.038
Age (years)	49 (28–79)	53 (27–74)	4.8 (−0.6 to 10.3)	0.084
BMI (kg/m^2)	27 (19–40)	26 (18–34)	1.2 (−5.1 to 2.6)	0.526
Auto-inflammatory comorbidity (any)	9 (23)	14 (36)	–	0.214
Active smoking	6 (17)	9 (24)	–	0.453
Current work absence due to CNO	14 (47)	14 (47)	–	1.000
Higher education	14 (58)	7 (30)		0.054
Physical activity				0.948
None at all	5 (23)	6 (26)
Daily walking/cycling (30 min)	5 (23)	6 (26)
Sport > 30 min, 1–2 times/week	9 (41)	9 (39)
Sport > 30 min, > 2 times/week	3 (14)	2 (9)
Disease characteristics
Diagnostic delay (years)	6 (0–29)	6 (0–21)	0.3 (−2.4 to 3.0)	0.826
Disease duration (years)	13 (1–39)	14 (2–40)	0.4 (−3.5 to 4.3)	0.835
Number of bones involved	3 (1–5)	3 (1–6)	0.02 (−0.8 to 0.9)	0.966
Compromised shoulder mobility	18 (58)	15 (52)		0.622
Skeletal distribution
Anterior chest wall only	26 (90)	27 (87)	–	0.582
Anterior chest wall + spine	1 (3)	1 (3)
Anterior chest wall + mandible	1 (3)	3 (10)
Spine only	1 (3)	–
CNO-related pain scores, assessed by BPI (10 indicates worst pain)
Maximal pain (0–10)	7.2 ± 2.1	6.6 ± 2.1	0.6 (−1.7 to 0.5)	0.296
Minimal pain (0–10)	3.1 ± 2.0	3.5 ± 2.4	0.4 (−0.8 to 1.6)	0.487
Average pain (0–10)	5.4 ± 1.9	5.2 ± 2.2	0.2 (−1.3 to 0.9)	0.701
Sleep disturbance (0–10)	4.7 ± 3.2	4.9 ± 2.8	0.2 (−1.4 to 1.8)	0.784
Shoulder function, assessed by SFA (70 indicates best function)
Shoulder function (0–70)	47.3 ± 13.8	51.0 ± 12.7	3.8 (−3.2 to 10.8)	0.285
Pharmacological treatment during PT
NSAIDs	28 (68)
Bisphosphonates	17 (42)
TNF-α inhibitors	5 (12)
Intra-articular corticosteroids	3 (7)
Other	9 (22)

Data are shown as n (%), mean (range), or mean ± sd.

BMI, body mass index; CNO, chronic non-bacterial osteitis; BPI, Brief Pain Inventory; SFA, Shoulder Function Assessment; NSAID, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug; TNF-α, tumour necrosis factor-α; CI, confidence interval.

Figure 3. Modalities of physical therapy (PT) in adult chronic non-bacterial osteitis, as reported by recent PT users (total n = 41).

Figure 4. Patient-reported effects of physical therapy in adult chronic non-bacterial osteitis (total n = 41).

Figure 5. Therapist-reported modalities applied in adult chronic non-bacterial osteitis (total n = 14).

Data availability statement

The data sets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.