Mental rehearsal showed benefits in knee replacement patients with high fear of movement
A short randomized trial favored adding motor imagery to usual rehabilitation, but did not report the size or persistence of the gains.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Adding structured motor imagery before exercise was followed by greater improvements in psychological measures, pain and physical function than standard rehabilitation alone. Both groups improved during early recovery. The findings apply to patients selected for high fear of movement after knee replacement; the abstract does not show the size of the extra gains or whether they lasted.
Only a brief rehabilitation period is reported, with no outcome-specific effect sizes or confidence intervals. The abstract cannot establish how clinically meaningful or durable the additional improvements were.
What researchers found
Pain intensity
Motor imagery plus rehabilitation versus rehabilitation alone after 2 weeks; the abstract reports p < 0.05 but gives no pain-score difference.
Who the findings concern
The study asked whether adding mental rehearsal to rehabilitation helped people with a high fear of movement after knee replacement. This was a selected patient group, making broader claims about all knee replacements uncertain.
Assessing early recovery
Evaluators were blinded when they assessed outcomes before and after treatment. Measures covered movement-related fear, catastrophic thoughts about pain, confidence, exercise adherence, pain, knee motion and quadriceps strength, allowing the trial to examine several dimensions of recovery.
The original publication
Motor imagery enhances early rehabilitation in patients with high kinesiophobia after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized controlled trial.
Lee J, Kim M, Lee Y
J Rehabil Med · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41327758
- Record checked
AI-assisted research and writing. This explains one selected publication; it is not a complete review of everything known. Our approach.
One more question, understood.
Keep track of the research you’ve explored.