THE IMPACT OF EARLY WEIGHT-BEARING IN POSTOPERATIVE RECOVERY FOR ANKLE FRACTURES
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Keywords
Ankle fractures, early weight-bearing, postoperative recovery, pain levels, rehabilitation
Abstract
This paper focuses to evaluate the outcomes of early mobilization with weight bearing in the patients with ankle fractures. The current study applied a randomized controlled trial in 60 participants grouped in the early weight-bearing and the traditional groups. The main measures of assessment were pain, joint function, the time to bear weight and complications. The following details were recorded in the two groups to determine if the two groups were equal in terms of patient demographics, height, weight, gender, age and type of injury. In fact, our research proved that early weight-bearing group patients had significantly lower pain scores and less time to full weight-bearing than the traditional group. Weight-bearing patients showed a greater improvement in the range of motion as compared to the non-weight-bearing patients, particularly at the 6-week follow up. There was no significant difference between the two groups with regard to the rate of complications hence meaning that early weight-bearing is safe for the patients. The findings of this research suggest that the early loading of the tibia through weight-bearing could be beneficial in enhancing the healing process and at the same time help to avoid negative outcomes. It is useful in this study to identify factors that may help in the improvement of postoperative rehabilitation of patients with ankle fractures. From the results obtained in this study, one could deduce that early weight bearing is beneficial in aspects of pain and functional recovery thus supporting its application in clinical setting.
References
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Dr Amol Rebello MS ORTHO
Associate Proffesor, Autonomus state medical college sultanpur.
Dr Kiran ravi Prabhakar
Associate proffesor ASMC