ORIGINAL ARTICLES   Free access

Europa Medicophysica 1998 March;34(1):17-24

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Liquid nitrogen cryotherapy effect on gait and pain in subjects with osteoarthritis of the knee

Garcia Martin J. ¹, Rodriguez Rodriguez L. P. ¹, Dankloff Mora C. ², Rodriguez Torres R. ², Pascual Gomez F. ¹, Gomez Pellico L. ²

¹ Departamento de Medicina Física y de Rehabilitácion, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; ² Departamento de Ciencias Morfológicas y Cirugía, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Spain

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to establish whether liquid nitrogen cryotherapy modifies pain in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee and influences gait. The ­effects of liq­uid nitro­gen cryo­ther­a­py on 26 sub­jects ­with bilat­er­al oste­oar­thritis of the ­knee ­were inves­ti­gat­ed. Patients ­were treat­ed dai­ly for ­five min­utes for a ­total of 15 ses­sions. Clinical (­joint ­range of ­motion, man­u­al mus­cu­lar ­strength) and anal­ge­sic ­effects of cryo­ther­a­py ­were deter­mined. The ­effects on ­patient mobil­ity ­using bio­me­chan­i­cal tech­niques ­which ana­lyze ­gait ­were ­also eval­u­at­ed.
RESULTS: After treat­ment, clin­i­cal improve­ment in ­knee exten­sion (p<0.05) and quad­ri­ceps ­strength in ­both low­er ­limbs (p<0.01) was ­observed. A reduc­tion in ­pain was ­also detect­ed, cor­re­spond­ing to var­i­ous indi­ces of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (Sensory Pain Rating Index (PRI (R)-S) (p<0.05), Total Pain Rating Index (PRI (R)-T) (p<0.05), Number of Words Chosen (NWC) (p<0.05) and Present Pain Intensity (PPI) (p<0.01). A non-sig­nif­i­cant ten­den­cy to ­improve ­gait var­i­ables at ­three ­speeds (­slow, nor­mal and ­fast), detect­ed ­using ­force plat­forms, was ­observed. Kinetic and kin­e­mat­ic var­i­ables ­showed no dif­fer­enc­es ­after treat­ment ­with the excep­tion of lat­er­al forc­es ­which ­were ­reduced in ­both ­legs dur­ing ­fast ­gait (p<0.05), improv­ing ­patient stabil­ity.
CONCLUSIONS: The ­absence of any sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es in ­gait var­i­ables fol­low­ing treat­ment sug­gests ­that ­apart ­from a clin­i­cal improve­ment in ­knee exten­sion and quad­ri­ceps ­strength, cryo­ther­a­py may ­induce ­only anal­ge­sic ­effects. These ­effects do not ­seem to be reflect­ed in the bio­me­chan­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of ­gait in ­these ­patients.