Vol 12, No 2 (2013)

A new trend in medicine, gravity therapy, and its integration into the system of medical rehabilitation are discussed. Many-year experimental and clinical studies involving over 8,000 patients revealed specific and non-specific reactions of the organism to the action of enhanced gravitation. Mechanisms of its therapeutic action and an original device for its simulation are described. Technical details of the method are discussed along with approaches to their application for the treatment and prevention of various diseases are considered with reference to indications and contraindications for the use of gravity therapy.

A new priority method for the rehabilitation of children presenting with aftereffects of perinatal encephalopathies is described. The study involved 38 patients aged 2-14 years with psychovocal and psychomotor retardation of varying severity. The method included 10 sessions of synchronous application of a 6-40 mT travelling magnetic field and 0.85-0.9 mcm wavelength laser radiation (3.5-5 mW, 50 Hz) transcranially and along the spinal cord for 10-12 min. A TRANSKRANIO physiotherapeutic apparatus was used. Significant and less pronounced improvement of clinical conditions was documented in 22 (57.9%) and 13 (34.2%) of the children respectively. These patients showed a wider scope of psychovocal and psychomotor skills and increased tolerability of physical activity. The clinical results were confirmed by the evaluation of brain bioelectric activity and conduction of cognitive evoked potentials. It is concluded that the proposed method permits to accelerate the child’s delayed motor development due to activation of brain cognitive function and metabolism.

We developed an improved method of exercise therapy for the patients presenting with intra-articular fractures of distal humerus. In this method, the elbow joint is fixed under conditions of maximum flexion or extension of multiarticular muscles and soft tissues surrounding the joint. It results in the two-fold improvement of the movements in the wrist and shoulder joints and permits to increase the amplitude of motion in the elbow joint within a single training session compared with the traditional methods and to reduce mean duration of the treatment by 2 months.

The possibilities of differential application of physical factors during normal and complicated postpartum period are discussed. Indications and contraindications for physiotherapy are described along with the most effective methods for the use of preformed natural and artificial physical factors.