Clinical and Functional Assessment of the Effectiveness of the General Extreme Aerocryotherapy Method in Treatment of Degenerative-Dystrophic Diseases of the Spine

The article represents the results of studies on the effectiveness of the treatments of patients with the spine degenerative-dystrophic diseases using general extreme aerocryotherapy according to the developed methodology. Material and methods. The study was done on 178 voluntary patients with the spine degenerative-dystrophic diseases with a dominating pain syndrome. The research was made on the basis of the State Institute “Scientific and Practical Medical Rehabilitation and Diagnostic Centre of the Ministry of Health in Ukraine”. As an object to create an extremely low temperature (below – 100 degrees Celsius), a cryochamber “Cryotherapy Chamber “Zimmer Midizin Systeme” (Germany) was used which allows for both individual and group (3-4 people) sessions of cryo-therapeutic exposure. Patients who took part in the study at the onset of cryotherapy did not take any anesthetic drugs (medication). The sessions of cryotherapy were carried out according to the O. A. Panchenko's method: the duration of the patients' stay in the pre-chamber before entering the main chamber was 30 seconds, after leaving it was 10 seconds; in the main chamber: first day was for 30 seconds, second day was for a minute, third day was for 2 minutes, fourth and subsequent days were for 3-4 minutes. The whole course included from 20 to 30 procedures. Results and discussions. As a result of the treatment, patients experienced the disappearance of pain syndrome (122 patients – 68.5%), a noticeable decrease in pain syndrome (56 patients – 31.5%), an increase in daily physical/motor activity (82 patients – 46%), reduced restraint on standing and walking (163 patients – 91.5%). In the clinical and neurological status, during the examination we noted a decrease in the tension of the nerve trunks, during palpation it was determined moderate tension of the back paravertebral muscles in some patients, tension symptoms were negative, impairment of sensitivity in dermatomes was absent and palpation of Valle points was not detected. The effect from a single session of general extreme aerocryotherapy was characterized by an increase in muscle strength and endurance for patients of both sexes. The term of relief of vertebral pain syndrome was 2-5 days, radicular one – 4-12 days. Conclusions. The application of the method of general extreme aerocryotherapy in the rehabilitation treatment of people with spine degenerative-dystrophic diseases allowed achieving the most rapid effectiveness in combating pain and muscular-tonic syndromes, strengthening the muscular frame, increasing the range of motion and endurance of static loads, improving the quality of treatment.