MUSTARD OIL – GARLIC COMBO MASSAGE- AN EFFECTIVE KNEE PAIN HOME REMEDY

Abstract

Background: Knee pain is one of the most prevalent disorders affecting the quality of life of elderly age group and geriatric population. This can occur due to numerous reasons including obesity, constant weight bearing rheumatic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, reactive arthritis as well as osteoarthritis that may lead to swelling, redness, warmth, weakness, tenderness, and stiffness of the joint. A number of pain reliever formulations are available in the market that include NSAIDs based creams, intra synovial injections and steroid based formulations however none of them proves to be completely effective in improving the quality of life of geriatric population. In addition to it, there are a number of reported side effects/adverse events related to these formulations.

Methods: The present study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a home remedy prepared from Mustard oil and garlic as mentioned in ancient texts of Ayurveda in the knee pain subjects for improving quality of life. A quasi-experimental study (two group pretest and posttest design) was conducted in 70 subjects in two groups of 35 each with knee joint pain meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Pain was assessed using numeric pain scale. Data analysis was done using inferential and descriptive statistics. Majority of the samples in both group I and group II had moderate and severe level of pain.

Results: After intervention, the pain level had reduced to mild level in experimental group as compared to conventional group. The mean pretest values of pain score in experimental group had significant difference during posttest measurement of mean pain score. The difference was found to be significant in experimental group with warm mustard oil massage, but in conventional group difference was not significant.

Conclusion: Mustard oil-garlic combo massage proved to be a good home remedy in knee pain

Key words:  effectiveness, mustard oil with garlic massage, knee pain