Stevens 2002.

Methods	This study was a randomised control trial with participants allocated to either an 'exercise group' or an 'exercise and neuromuscular stimulation' group for 6 weeks post total knee replacement.
Participants	39 participants post primary total knee arthroplasty randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. The control group received voluntary exercise only with exercises twice daily, 5 days per week and the neuromuscular stimulation group received the same exercise programme plus 10 NMES quadriceps contractions at each treatment session. There were 18 participants (12 male and 6 female) in the control group aged in years 63.7 ± 7.7, and 16 participants in the experimental group (12 male and 4 female) aged 65.9 ± 7.6 years in the experimental group.
Interventions	Participants received 6 weeks of treatment 3 times weekly with both groups participating in a high intensity exercise programme. The NMES group also received 10 NMES quadriceps contractions at greater than 30% of quadriceps strength.This consisted of ten, 10 second isometric contractions with an 80 second rest between contractions. The intensity was set to the maximum intensity tolerated by the participant with the dosage ≥ 30% of the voluntary quadriceps strength.
Outcomes	Testing was performed at 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks after total knee arthroplasty. The outcomes assessed were quadriceps strength, quadriceps activation, timed up and go test, functional stairs test, and health status questionnaires (including the SF36, Knee outcome survey, and activities of daily living scale).
Notes	Five patients did not complete the study.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Adequate sequence generation?	Unclear risk	Method of randomisation was not stated leaving insufficient information to decide whether or not the sequence generation was adequate.
Allocation concealment?	Unclear risk	Method of concealment was not described.
Blinding? All outcomes	High risk	Testers were blinded to the group assignment of subjects but there is no blinding reported of either the patients or the therapists involved both in the study. Both of these factors indicate a high risk of bias in the study.
Incomplete outcome data addressed? All outcomes	Unclear risk	5 subjects did not complete the study. The groups to which these subjects were originally randomly allocated to were not reported.
Free of selective reporting?	High risk	No raw data was available for any of the outcome measurements. Outcomes were given as P values only. This information is insufficient to permit meta‐analysis and may indicate the potential for a high risk of bias with regard to selective reporting.
Free of other bias?	Unclear risk	The absence of group mean numbers for all time frames prevents full assessment of potential bias