[Rehabilitative approach in osteoarticular pathology in the elderly]. / L'approccio riabilitativo nella patologia osteoarticolare dell'anziano.

Acute and chronic osteoarticular pathology is quickly reviewed. After a review of the most important orthopaedic operations, the most significant types of physical therapy that are most suitable for individual cases are described in detail. Finally it is pointed out that physical exercise is the most natural way to stimulated new bone growth and that medical gymnastics is important for the elderly and using menopause.

Voluntary regularization method of the respiratory act applied to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Respiration is a vital, complex function, fundamentally automatic that can be modulated by will. The aim of the original method submitted is the progressive rehabilitation of the patient to strain, by a gradual reduction of respiratory frequency at the progressive increase in expiration phases and the execution of a growing effort in strict relation to the execution of the method itself. The patient learns to beat out the rhythm of his respiration based upon the strokes of the metronome, calibrated at 60 strokes a minute. The most evident documentation of the efficacy of our method of voluntary regularization of the respiratory act is in the evaluation of the effort capacity of each patient, before and after the method. The data are referred to the distance covered by cyclette, in standard conditions. The examined clinical parametres comprehend: cardiac frequency, respiratory frequency, maximal pause and arterial pressure. The laboratory parametres examined include the value of the arterial astrup: pH, pCO2, HCO3-, total CO2, pO2, excess basis. The scarcity of clinical survey examined during our research does not permit the formulation of any conclusive considerations, which would lead to a critical revision of the whole field of the physiology of respiration. For this reason, it is more prudent to establish the modifications of various parametres collected, until a more certain and wider confirmation is available.

Syndesmomyolysis in early osteoarthrosis of the knee.

The authors present a new operative procedure for the early stages of osteoarthrosis of the knee associated with varus or valgus axial deviations. This is based on biomechanical considerations related to the articular equilibrium of the knee, and on pathogenetic interpretations of arthrotic disease in this particular joint. After reviewing the capsular, muscular and ligamentous systems of the medial and lateral compartments of the knee, they consider the active forces capable of opposing the eccentric thrusts of load and gravity in disequilibrium due to axial deviation. Clinical investigations have been carried out which reveal that under these pathological conditions, cicatricial retraction occurs on the concave side and stretching on the convex side of the axial deviation. For the former they have devised the operation of "syndesmomyolysis", which must be preceded by preoperative muscular reinforcement on the convex side. The objective of this procedure is to restore the equilibrium of the forces acting on the articular axis.

[Medical gymnastics in "surgical scoliosis"]. / La ginnastica medica nella "scoliosi chirurgica".

After simple premises on scoliosis and on physiotherapy, we design the evolution of the illness in: physiotherapic, orthopaedic and surgical scoliosis, connected with the therapeutic moment. Then we underline the necessity of surgical scoliosis to sustain it adequately with a careful physiotherapic treatment either for the preparation to the operation or in the stage following the operation.