Zusammenfassung
Purpose: What influence does transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation have on postoperative pain and oedema after knee arthroplasty? Materials and Methods: 60 patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups after total knee arthroplasty: 20 patients received electrical stimulation equipment, 20 patients placebo equipment or stayed without equipment. Postoperatively patients with ...
Zusammenfassung
Purpose: What influence does transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation have on postoperative pain and oedema after knee arthroplasty? Materials and Methods: 60 patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups after total knee arthroplasty: 20 patients received electrical stimulation equipment, 20 patients placebo equipment or stayed without equipment. Postoperatively patients with functional and placebo equipment were advised to use electrical stimulation therapy two to three times a day for 45 min each. The first 30 min were used for control of oedema by high voltage pulsed current with negative polarity and an impulse frequency of 100 pps. The following 15 min were used for pain control with sinusoidal impulse and a frequency of 1 000 Hz. All patients kept a pain diary. Patients were clinically examined and data was collected before, two to three days after and finally a week after the surgery. Results: Pain was lowest in the group with electrical stimulation and reached significancy (p = 0.02) on day seven after surgery. Working equipment showed a significant (p = 0.012) reduction of circumference of 0.925 cm at knee joint during therapy. At the end of the study, patients with functional electrical stimulation (29 degrees; p = 0.027) and placebo treatment (30 degrees; p = 0.007) significantly increased the range of motion. The group with stimulation showed the highest HSS score compared to the group without equipment (p = 0.003) and the placebo group (p = 0.04). Conclusion: Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation significantly reduced oedema and pain and improved the range of motion and the HSS score.
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