Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Effects of early rehabilitation following operative repair of Achilles tendon rupture (PEDro synthesis)
  1. Flavia A Carvalho,
  2. Steven J Kamper
  1. Musculoskeletal Division, The George Institute for Global Health, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Steven J Kamper, Musculoskeletal Division, The George Institute for Global Health, P.O. Box M201, Sydney, NSW 2000 Australia; skamper{at}george.org.au

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

This section features a recent systematic review that is indexed on PEDro, the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (http://www.pedro.org.au). PEDro is a free, web-based database of evidence relevant to physiotherapy.

▸ Huang J, Weng C, Ma X, et al. Rehabilitation regimen after surgical treatment of acute achilles tendon ruptures. Am J Sports Med 2015;43:1008–16.

Background

Although the Achilles tendon (AT) is the largest and strongest tendon in the body, it is often ruptured. Following operative repair, the treated lower leg is typically immobilised in a cast. In order to reduce the risk of complications arising from immobilisation, such as scar adhesions, delayed wound healing and ankle stiffness, some studies have investigated whether early rehabilitation is an optimal approach to treatment. In practice this involves ankle range of motion exercises begun within a week or two of surgery. However, the role of early weightbearing through injured limb is still unclear.

Aim

This systematic review aimed to investigate the effectiveness of early functional rehabilitation following surgical repair of an AT rupture. Early weightbearing combined with early ankle motion exercises; and …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Contributors FAC and SJK interpreted the systematic review, wrote and reviewed drafts. Both authors approved the final version.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.