Acute effect of kinesiotherapy and neuromotor electrostimulation on thermal variation in individuals with chronic venous insufficiency

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is a change in the venous system due to a valve inability, generating reflux that is associated or not with venous flow obstruction, and might be caused by dysfunction in the muscles of the sural triceps. Objetctive: To evaluate the acute effect of neuromuscular electrostimulation and kinesiotherapy on ankle joint flexibility, infrared radiation and sural triceps strength of individuals with CVI. Methoda: this is a comparative study. Which infrared radiation was obtained by quantitative analysis of thermograms of both calves using thermographic camera; to evaluate ankle flexibility, the ‘‘goniometer’’ application was used and a portable dynamometer was used to evaluate the muscle strength of dorsiflexion and plantar flexion. One session of electrostimulation was performed by the Aussie current of 1kHz with Burst of duration equal to 2 ms (EG- electrostimulation group), in the right lower limb and kinesiotherapy (GC-kinesiotherapy group) in the left lower limb with stretching and metabolic exercises involving the ankle. Results: 19 female patients were evaluated. Ankle flexibility analysis did not show statistically significant changes. In the evaluation of muscle strength there was no intergroup difference and in the intragroup evaluation only the CG showed an increase for dorsiflexion when compared to before treatment and 24 h after (respectively 11.6±3.5; 13.5±3.0, p=0.02), and for plantar flexion (11.8±6.3; 14.4±5.06, p=0.04). There was no statistically significant difference when intergroups and intragroup flexibility was evaluated. Regarding thermography, there was no intragroup difference while in the intergroup evaluation, the CG presented an increase in temperature immediately and 24 hours after (respectively 0.44±0.68, p=0.01 and 0.25±0.83, p=0.07). When analyzed the correlation between dorsiflexion force and plantar flexion of both lower body with the amplitude of the total arch of the right and left ankle, a positive correlation was observed only between plantar flexion strength immediately after and 24 hours after ankle ROM(rang of movement) in the kinesiotherapy group (respectively r=0.49, p=0.03 and r=0.51, p=0.03). Conclusion: There were no significant differences between the kinesiotherapy procedure and electrotherapy when analyzing muscle flexibility and strength. However Kinesiotherapy was superior to electrostimulation in the increase in calf temperature before and after 24 hours of the intervention.