Dr Gregory Tarr. Interventional Radiology

Symptom score

KOOS-12 knee score

The KOOS-12 is a twelve-question version of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score, the questionnaire most often used in research on knee osteoarthritis treatments, including genicular artery embolisation. It takes about two minutes.

Anonymous calculator — nothing is saved
0 of 13 answered About 2 minutes

About this entry

This only changes which questions you are asked. It does not change your score.

Filled in from your secure link. Please leave it as it is.

Which knee?

1Which knee is troubling you?

If both knees are affected, answer the questionnaire about the worse knee.

Pain

2How often do you experience knee pain?

Pain

What amount of knee pain have you experienced the last week during the following activities?

3Walking on a flat surface
4Going up or down stairs
5Sitting or lying

Function, daily living

The following questions concern your physical function. By this we mean your ability to move around and to look after yourself. For each of the following activities please indicate the degree of difficulty you have experienced in the last week due to your knee.

6Rising from sitting
7Standing
8Getting in/out of a car
9Twisting/pivoting on your injured knee

Quality of Life

10How often are you aware of your knee problem?
11Have you modified your life style to avoid potentially damaging activities to your knee?
12How much are you troubled with lack of confidence in your knee?
13In general, how much difficulty do you have with your knee?

Since your treatment

These questions only apply at a follow-up review.

Overall, how is your knee compared with before your treatment?
Have you had any further injection, knee surgery or knee replacement since your treatment?
How satisfied are you with the result of your treatment?

KOOS-12© Ewa Maria Roos, 2018. Used under licence. References: Gandek B, Roos EM, Franklin PD, Ware JE Jr. Item selection for 12-item short forms of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS-12) and Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS-12). Osteoarthritis Cartilage 2019;27:746–753. Gandek B, Roos EM, Franklin PD, Ware JE Jr. A 12-item short form of the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS-12): tests of reliability, validity and responsiveness. Osteoarthritis Cartilage 2019;27:762–770. KOOS-12 contact information and permission to use: Mapi Research Trust, Lyon, France, https://eprovide.mapi-trust.org

If this is urgent, do not use this page

If your knee is hot, red and swollen with fever, if you cannot bear weight at all after an injury, or if your calf is painful and swollen, seek medical care the same day. Do not wait for this questionnaire.

This page provides no emergency or urgent clinical assessment, and nobody monitors it outside consulting hours.

What this score measures — and what it does not

This questionnaire does not diagnose anything

It measures how severe and how troublesome your symptoms are right now. It cannot tell you what is causing them, it cannot tell you whether you have knee osteoarthritis, and it cannot decide whether embolisation or any other treatment is right for you. Only a consultation, an examination and the appropriate tests can do that.

What this score measures

Twelve questions in three groups of four: knee pain, everyday function, and the effect of your knee on your quality of life.

Each group is scored from 0 to 100, and the three are averaged for an overall score. On this scale 100 means no knee problems and 0 means extreme problems — so unlike most symptom scores, and unlike the other scores on this site, a higher number is better.

Scored according to the KOOS scoring instructions: each response counts 0 to 4 in the printed order, each of the three subscales is calculated as 100 minus the mean of its four items divided by 4 times 100, and the KOOS-12 summary score is the average of the three subscale scores. This is the US English original — the only English version published — so a few phrases will read as American.

The low, moderate and high bands shown with your result are a practical guide used by this practice to help you read your score. They are not official categories of the instrument.

Privacy — how your answers are handled

Privacy

Anonymous calculator. This page works out your score inside your own web browser. Your answers are not sent to Tarr Radiology, and they are not stored on any server, unless you choose to fill in the “Get in touch” section and press send. We do not ask for your date of birth, address, Medicare number or referring doctor here.

Unfinished answers may be kept temporarily in your own browser on this device so you can come back to them. Use “Start again” to clear them.

We measure anonymous usage of this page — how many people start and finish the questionnaire, and how long it takes. Your answers and your score are never included in that measurement and are never sent to analytics or advertising services.

If you send us your score, your name, contact details, answers and score are handled as health information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and are kept in our clinical records. Read our privacy policy and collection notice.

Common questions

What does my KOOS-12 score mean?

It is scored from 0 to 100 where 100 means no knee problems and 0 means extreme problems. That is the opposite direction to most symptom questionnaires, so a high number here is good news. You also get three separate scores — pain, function and quality of life — because a knee can be painful without being stiff, or vice versa.

Why does the wording sound American?

Because the KOOS-12 has only ever been published in US English and Swedish. Licensed questionnaires must be used exactly as written — changing even a spelling would make it an unauthorised adaptation and would break the comparability with published research that is the whole point of using it.

How much does the score change after genicular artery embolisation?

Published series generally report improvement in KOOS pain and function scores over the first three to six months, with most of the benefit apparent by three months. Individual results vary, and embolisation may reduce, delay or avoid the need for knee replacement rather than guarantee it.

Is this the same as the knee tracker on your other page?

No, and the two are not interchangeable. The tracker is a short questionnaire of our own for following your own progress. The KOOS-12 is a validated instrument used in research, which is why we use it for patients we are following after treatment.

Are my answers stored?

Not in the anonymous calculator. Scoring happens in your browser. Nothing is sent to us unless you choose to complete the “Get in touch” section and press send.

Read more

Medically reviewed by Dr Gregory Tarr, MB ChB, PhD, FRANZCR, EBIR
Reviewed 25 July 2026 · next review due July 2027 · instrument: KOOS-12

Questionnaire wording, scoring and interpretation clinically approved by Dr Gregory Tarr on 25 July 2026. Items and point values verified against the source publication on 25 July 2026.

This page is general information for Australian patients and their doctors. It is not a substitute for individual medical advice.