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Partial meniscectomy, supervised physical therapy (PT), and home exercise programs are all equally effective in managing the pain and functional limitations of degenerative meniscal tears of the knee — but is unsupervised home exercise as effective as supervised PT? To find out, researchers randomized 879 adults (mean age, 59 years) with symptomatic, MRI-confirmed medial or lateral meniscal tears and osteophytes or cartilage damage, but without severe joint-space narrowing, to 12 weeks of one of four treatments: Group 1, home exercises (four 25-minute sessions, guided by an instructional booklet and video); Group 2, adding thrice-weekly text-message exercise reminders to Group 1; Group 3, adding 14 sessions of sham PT to Group 2; or …