Pain management in Postpoliomyelitis Syndrome: case study

Abstract

The Post-polio Syndrome (PPS) is characterized by a new episode of muscular weakness and/or abnormal muscular fatigue in subjects that presented acute previous polio (APP) years ago. There still are few studies about the pain management at PPS. The aim of this study is to analyze pain´s management in PPS by a case report. A men with PPS, 57 years, was submitted to 24 sessions of physical therapy for pain´s control in PPS, based at electro-thermo physical therapy features and therapeutics exercises. For pain´s analysis, pre and post physical therapy interventions were applied two instruments: the Analogic Visual Scale (AVS) and Present Pain Intensity (PPI). The pain in right knee was reduced from grade 8 to 4 on AVS, grade 5 to 2 on PPI, while the pain in his right ankle decreased from grade 2 on AVS and 1 on PPI to zero in both scales. The pain is the predominant symptom for many patients with PPS. This relate, the patient after program of treatment presented an improvement of pain. However, because of there are few studies in the literature about the pain management, especially in physical therapy, new studies must be proposed to generate more theorical at Physical therapy intervention in PSS.