Heat therapy for hand osteoarthritis reduces short-term pain and improves grip strength, but does not improve overall hand function scores. Multimodal approaches (paraffin, mud baths) outperformed simple heat. Based on 9 trials with 627 patients.
Heat therapy significantly reduced pain on the VAS scale compared with control (p = 0.01), but the total AUSCAN hand-function score showed no significant difference between groups (p = 0.67).
In subgroup analysis, multimodal heat therapy (paraffin wax, mud baths) produced a significant pain reduction (SMD = −0.85; 95% CI: −1.31 to −0.40) and grip-strength gain (SMD = 0.55; 95% CI: 0.24 to 0.85), while simple heat alone (hot compresses, heated gloves) showed no significant effect on either outcome (pain SMD = 0.11; grip SMD = 0.03).
GRADE assessment rated the evidence for VAS pain (SMD −0.60) and grip strength (SMD 0.43) as moderate certainty, downgraded primarily for risk of bias; the AUSCAN total score and pinch strength were rated low certainty due to inconsistency and risk of bias.
Single-blind randomized controlled trial. Sixty-four participants were randomized across two intervention arms and assessed at twelve weeks for the primary outcome…
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