ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Joint contracture causes a decrease in range of motion (ROM), which severely affects activities of daily living of patients. We have investigated the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary rehabilitation on joint contracture by rat model. METHODS: We used 60 Wistar rats in this study. The rats were divided into five groups as follows: group 1 was the normal control group; except the group 1, we created left hind limb knee joint contracture using Nagai method for other four groups. The joint contracture modeling group 2 was the model control group for monitoring the spontaneous recovery, and other three groups were given different rehabilitation treatments; for example, group 3 was treadmill running group; group 4 was medication group; group 5 was treadmill running plus medication group. The left hind limbs knee joint ROM and the femoral blood flow indicators (FBFI) including PS, ED, RI, and PI were measured right before and after the 4 weeks of rehabilitation. RESULT: After 4 weeks of rehabilitation treatments, the measured values of ROM and FBFI are compared with the corresponding values of group 2. Firstly, we did not see clear difference in the values of ROM and FBFI for group 2 before and after 4 weeks spontaneous recovery. The improvement of left lower limb ROM for group 4 and group 5 as compared to the group 2 was statistically significant (p < 0.05), whereas a less recovery for group 3 was observed. However as compared to the group 1, we did not observe full recovery in ROM of group 4 and group 5 after 4 weeks of rehabilitation. The PS and ED level for rehabilitation treatment groups was significantly higher than those modeling ones (Tables 2, 3, Figs. 4, 5), while the RI and PI values show the contrary trends (Tables 4, 5, Figs. 6, 7). CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that multidisciplinary rehabilitation treatments had a curative effect on both contracture of joints and the abnormal femoral circulations.
Subject(s)
Activities of Daily Living , Contracture , Humans , Rats , Animals , Rats, Wistar , Knee Joint , Disease Models, Animal , Hemodynamics , Range of Motion, ArticularABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the curative effect of rehabilitation nursing on the rat knee model of post-traumatic joint contractures.Methods:Male Wistar rats ( n=40), weighing between (180±20) g, were randomly divided into control group ( n=8) and experimental group ( n = 32) by random number table. The left knee was surgically immobilized in the experimental group which by external fixation for 4 weeks which applied the Nagai method established the model of post-traumatic joint contractures, the group also divided into four groups namely experimental control group, rehabilitation nursing intervention group, drug intervention group and exercise intervention group, 8 rats in each group and they were given different interventions. After 4 weeks interventions each rat was photographed with X-ray in order to measure the range of motion of the left knee joint range of motion (ROM), the joint muscle and synovial tissue of the animals were subjected to morphological analysis. Results:The ROM of left knee joint in experimental group (74.74±9.23) ° was lower than that of in control group (109.72±5.74) ° after 4 weeks immobilization, the difference was statistically significant ( t value was 12.237, P < 0.01), which showed that the model of joint contractures was established successfully. Compared with the experimental control group ROM (72.20±12.73) °, the difference of ROM (103.54 ±4.36)° in rehabilitation nursing intervention group and ROM (98.13 ±11.20) ° in drug intervention group were significantly higher ( t value was, P < 0.05). The results of pathological section showed that the gloss of muscle tissue in the rehabilitation nursing intervention group and the muscle fiber arrangement in the drug intervention group were close to those in the control group. Conclusion:Rehabilitation nursing intervention can not only improve ROM of joint contracture model animals, but also promote the recovery of joint muscle tissue structure.
