ArticleJournal of orthopaedic surgery and research2026
Correlation between smartwatch-measured daily walking steps and patient-reported functional outcomes following total knee arthroplasty: a prospective cohort study.
Article in Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPatient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are the clinical standard for assessing recovery after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) which reflect patients' perceived function, whereas smartwatch step counts capture real-world activity. Whether their changes align after TKA is uncertain. We therefore assessed correlations between changes in daily steps and changes in PROMs.
methodsIn this prospective single-centre cohort, 86 patients undergoing unilateral primary TKA received a consumer-grade smartwatch (Polar A370™). Daily steps and PROMs were recorded 1 month pre-operatively and at 3 and 6 months post-operatively. PROMs comprised the Oxford Knee Score (OKS; 0-48, higher = better) and the KOOS-Physical Function Short-form (KOOS-PS; 0-28, higher = worse). Change scores were computed so that positive values indicated improvement. Pearson correlations assessed associations between change in steps and change in PROMs; paired t-tests compared pre-operative with 6-month values.
resultsOf 96 enrolled patients, 86 (89.6%) completed the 6-month follow-up. At 6 months, functional outcomes improved substantially: OKS increased from 26.4 (6.6) to 38.4 (5.8) (p < 0.001), and KOOS-PS decreased from 14.1 (4.3) to 9.8 (2.7) (p < 0.001). Daily steps increased modestly from 6651 (4,294) to 7807 (4,363) (p = 0.008). Correlations between change in steps and change in PROMs were negligible: OKS r = 0.055 (95% CI - 0.159 to 0.264) and KOOS-PS r = 0.071 (95% CI - 0.143 to 0.279).
conclusionsAlthough PROMs improved markedly after TKA, they showed little correlation with smartwatch-measured step counts. Patient-reported outcomes and objective activity data reflect different aspects of recovery and should be interpreted as complementary rather than hierarchical measures. IRB approval: Si COA 582/2022.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.