Remission of Walking Parameters in Peripheral Arterial Disease through Association of Galvanic Baths and Kinesytherapy

Chronic peripheral obstructive arteriopathies (CPOA), together with their determinations, play an important role in the elderly pathology and represent one of the most frequent causes of disability, thus having a negative impact on the patient's quality of life. Therefore, in this clinical randomized trial we proposed to study the efficiency of several treatment methods based on physical exercise together with other therapeutical approaches specific to physical medicine such as galvanic baths. We formed a group of 111 patients diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease in inferior limbs randomized into three groups: the control group (drug treatment and hygiene-dietary), the exercise group (12 weeks supervised exercises program, followed by another 12 weeks home unsupervised exercises) and the exercise and procedure group (kinesitherapy and galvanic baths). All the subjects performed the exercise treadmill test, according to the Gardner protocol, at the beginning of the study, after 12 weeks and after 24 weeks, at the end of the study and were measured: the time to pain onset (TDC) and the time to maximum pain onset (maximum walking time=TDD). We observed quite high TDC differences in the two groups that performed physical exercises compared to the control group, while the amelioration of walking periods was recorded after the first 12 weeks, and after 24 weeks they reached walking periods 2.5 times higher than at the beginning of the study. Adding hydrotherapy to the physical exercise led to even higher TDC values. After 12 weeks, we obtained a 54% TDD remission in the exercise group (p<0.005) and a 65% remission in the exercise and hydrotherapy group (p<0.005) and at the end of period, the TDD remission was 90% in the exercise group (p<0.005) and 100% in the exercise and hydrotherapy group (p<0.05). The kinetic-physical modalities show its efficiency in ameliorating the walking parameters in the patients with claudication and may offer low risks compared to the revascularization methods, high addressability, diminished costs.