Rehabilitation aspects concerning traumatic lesions of external popliteal sciatic nerve

Abstract

This paper evaluates the functional deficits after a traumatic lesion of EPS and the necessity of an early and individualized rehabilitation therapy for a good recovery. We designed a retrospective study on a 96 patients who suffered traumatic lesions of EPS nerve and we evaluated them at the beginning and at the end of the rehabilitation program in our clinic.
The recovery program was complex and strictly individualized depending upon the clinico-functional status of every patient; it consists in kinetotherapy, low frequency and exponential electrostimulations, analgetic electrotherapy, lasertherapy, ultrasound. The evaluation of the patient consists of : pain intensity score (on visual analogue scale), neuro-muscular appreciation (muscular balance, neurologic evaluation and EMG), gait examination and functional implications (FIM scale). After traumatic lesions of external popliteal sciatic nerve, the complex therapeutic rehabilitation methods during hospitalization and continuously daily training after the initial program has a major role for clinical and functional improvement of the patient , better quality of life and socio-professional reintegration.

Key words:

external popliteal sciatic nerve (EPS), clinical and functional evaluation, rehabilitation program, ankle-foot orthosis (AFO).