Rehabilitation News

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is urging female athletes — particularly soccer players — to consider a new warm-up program to help lower their risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries.

Women’s muscles may require longer, more intensive rehabilitation after bed rest and cast immobilization, according to researchers at the Institute for Neuromusculoskeletal Research at the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

A group of pain experts from the United Kingdom and Italy said women are often more prone to long-term debilitating conditions such as arthritis, migraines and irritable bowel syndrome and frequently fail to receive adequate pain relief for those conditions.

A study conducted at the University of Delaware and funded by the National Institutes of Health comparing two styles of knee bracing in subjects with medial compartment osteoarthritis showed that neutral bracing produced results as good as or better than valgus brace alignment.

Acupuncture was more effective at treating chronic low back pain than conventional care in a semi-blinded randomized, controlled study conducted at outpatient centers across Germany. Sham acupuncture, however, worked about as well as the actual procedure, the study results showed.

In a randomized controlled trial, researchers from the United Kingdom studied 352 patients with knee osteoarthritis who received one of the following treatments:

Patients randomized to two rehabilitation programs or a control group following lumbar spinal decompression surgery experienced no further pain relief beyond that reported immediately postoperatively.

CALGARY, Alberta — A neoprene knee sleeve provides patients with support similar to a functional knee brace after primary ACL reconstruction, according to a study presented here.

TORONTO — Patients who completed a rehabilitation protocol involving early, protected weight-bearing after surgery for Achilles tendon rupture showed better functional and quality of life scores during the early postoperative period, a prospective study found.

The search is on for safer, even decelerated rehabilitation protocols that might offer better outcomes than those achieved with more accelerated or aggressive rehab approaches.