KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS AND HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY-OF-LIFE

This section of the symposium addresses the definition, measurement, a nd relevance of health-related quality of life (HRQL) to osteoarthriti s (OA) of the knee. Emphasis is placed on the multidimensional nature of HRQL and the fact that these measures can be used as either outcome or process variables. Clearly, HRQL has been accepted as an appropria te measure of treatment efficacy (an outcome measure) in most clinical research, augmenting the more traditional measures of morbidity and m ortality. However, as this paper demonstrates, HRQL measures constitut e important process variables in understanding disability and related concepts that are critical in designing effective therapies for treati ng knee OA.