Comparison of Effectiveness of Mulligan and Maitland Mobilization

Osteoarthritis (OA) is common joint disease causing disability. Current physical therapy aimed to reduce pain and improve functional performance in management of OA. The purpose of this study is to find out the effectiveness of mobilization technique either Mulligan’s Mobilization or Maitland Mobilization for improving the Tibiofemoral joint ROM and functional performance in case of unilateral osteoarthritis. Thirty subjects with OA of Tibiofemoral joint divided in to three groups of 10 subjects. Group A received Mulligan mobilization, Group B received Maitland Mobilization and Group C received conventional treatment. Pain intensity measured by VAS, ROM measured by Goniometry and functional performance was measured by WOMAC scale pre and post treatment. Intragroup comparison of ROM showed significantly improvement in three group but Mulligan group showed very highly significant (p< 0.001) improvement. While VAS and WOMAC score showed significant (p=0.005) improvement in three groups. In this study all groups have shown significant difference in improving ROM, reducing pain and improvement in functional performance but mulligan group showed more improvement than Maitland group.