What You Should Know About Osteoarthritis Rehabilitation: A Bibliometric Analysis of the 50 Most-Cited Articles

Background: Osteoarthritis is a degenerative disease that commonly occurs in middle-aged and elderly people. High-quality articles in the field of osteoarthritis rehabilitation have not been studied in detail. Objective: To identify and conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 50 most-cited articles on osteoarthritis rehabilitation and provide valuable scientific information for researchers. Methods: Fifty articles related to the rehabilitation of individuals with osteoarthritis were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Basic information, such as the authors, title, number of citations, year of publication, journal, country/territory, and research type, was extracted. CiteSpace was used to visualize the keywords. Results: The average number of citations per article was 244.54. The top 50 articles were published in 27 journals and published by 262 authors. Most of the top 50 articles were published in the United States. The top 50 articles included 23 randomized controlled trials, 21 cohort studies, 2 case series, and 4 expert opinion articles. The most commonly studied topics in osteoarthritis rehabilitation included rehabilitation for pain, gait abnormalities, muscle strength deficiencies, and other functional impairments caused by osteoarthritis in elderly people. Conclusions: The top articles in the field of osteoarthritis rehabilitation have a high level of evidence. Collaboration between authors was high for highly-cited articles. Moreover, the eminent articles can provide important information for the education of doctors and therapists specializing in osteoarthritis rehabilitation.