OBLITERATIVE VASCULAR DISEASE

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The introduction of passive vascular exercise in the treatment of obliterative vascular disease has stimulated renewed interest in the care of patients suffering from symptoms due to impaired peripheral circulation. The idea of applying environmental pressure changes to an extremity in order to increase the flow of blood through it has been advanced by Reid and Herrmann1and by Landis and Gibbon.2One of the units for passive vascular exercise, designed by Herrmann, has been in use for the past year in the surgical and physical therapy departments of the New York Hospital. This unit differs from the apparatus designed by Landis and Gibbon chiefly in that the environmental pressure changes are produced slowly rather than suddenly. It is believed that rhythmic, gradual change from negative to positive pressure augments the flow of blood through an extremity just as effectively as does rhythmic sudden alternation in environmental pressure and does so without danger of injury to the intima of the vascular network, the vessels of which have already undergone some degree of sclerosis and thrombosis.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: