EFFECTIVENESS OF DIADYNAMIC CURRENT AND MENS IN HEEL PAIN: A RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIAL

Relevance: Heel pain is one of the most common conditions leading to functional disabilities seen worldwide. There are different methods to manage heel pain, conservatively, and/or surgically. Physiotherapy treatment, as a part of conservative management, involves reduction of pain and improvement of functional ability by various approaches like exercise therapy, electrotherapy and manual therapy techniques. Various studies have shown that Diadynamic current and MENS along with conventional treatments give significant beneficial effects in pain reliving. Hence the present study was undertaken to compare and see the effect of Diadynamic current and MENS in heel pain. Participants: 30 subjects (mean age 25.73 ± 6.56) diagnosed with heel pain were recruited from Out-Patient Department of Physiotherapy of KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Belagavi. Method: Subjects were randomly allocated into 2 groups namely Group A (n=15) who received Diadynamic current along with conventional treatment as Therapeutic ultrasound and strengthening and stretching exercises and Group B (n=15) who received MENS with conventional treatment same as in group A for 7 days. The outcome measures were Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain, Pain disability index (PDI) and foot disability index (FDI) for functional disability. Analysis: Within group and between group analyses after intervention was done to assess changes using paired t-test and unpaired t - test. Result: Mean difference of VAS scores for Group A was 6.9 ± 1.48 and for Group B was 4.3 ± 2.43. Mean difference of PDI scores for Group A was 274 ± 117 and for Group B was 171 ± 99.Mean difference of FDI scores for Group A was 0.36 ± 0.24 and for Group B was 0.15 ± 0.15. Intra group comparison was statistically significant with p= <0.001 for both the groups in terms of VAS, PDI and FDI respectively. Inter group comparison was statistically significant with p= 0.005, 0.031, 0.007 for VAS, PDI and FDI respectively. Conclusion: Diadynamic current is effective in reducing pain and secondarily improving the functional ability in subjects with heel pain.