Article Text
Abstract
Background: The therapeutic efficacy of non-surgical treatment strategies in Achilles tendinopathy (AT) has not been well clarified. Time-consuming and costly combinations of treatment for pain, physiotherapy and biomechanical procedures are often applied.
Objective: To analyse the efficacy of single therapeutic regimens commonly used over a short period of 4 weeks.
Methods: 31 male runners (mileage >32 km/week) with unilateral, untreated AT completed 4 weeks of either physiotherapy (10 treatments: deep-friction, pulsed ultrasound, ice, sensory motor training; (P)), wearing custom fit semirigid insoles (I) or remained without treatment (control group C). Before and after treatment, all patients underwent a treadmill test and a plantar flexion strength exercise. Subjective pain (Pain Disability Index, Pain Experience Scale), as well as strength performance capacity (peak torque), was analysed (mean, 95% CI, repeated measures analysis of variance, α = 0.05).
Results: Pain was reduced to <50% of the baseline value after physiotherapy or after wearing insoles (p<0.05). Individual pain reduction was >50% (25%) in 89% (100%) of subjects in I and 55% (73%) in P. Higher eccentric plantar flexion peak torques after treatment were observed in I and P.
Conclusions: Most patients with AT experience a reduction in pain after only 4 weeks of differentiated, non-surgical treatment consisting of physiotherapy or semirigid insoles.
- AT, Achilles tendinopathy
- C, control group
- I, group wearing insoles
- IAT, individual’s anaerobic threshold
- P, group undergoing physiotherapy
- PDI, Pain Disability Index
- PES, Pain Experience Scale
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
-
Published Online First 26 January 2007
-
Competing interests: None.
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.