Pressurized Cuff Helps Some With Limping and Leg Pain
April 13, 2000 (Atlanta) -- British doctors have found that there may be a relatively simple way to treat leg pain caused by blockages in the arteries that supply blood to the legs. Their research shows that wearing a pressurized foot cuff for a few hours a day, over the course of four months, can help leg circulation and improve walking for up to a year after treatment -- and possibly longer.
The findings, published in the April issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery, are good news for hundreds of thousands of people with this condition, called peripheral vascular disease. An estimated 10% of people over 70, along with 2% to 3% people aged 37 to 69, limp and experience pain because of a hardening and clogging of the leg arteries. The condition causes pain in the legs after walking relatively short distances. As patients age, it often gets worse.
"These are patients for whom medical treatments cannot offer substantial advantage. These are patients who ... have poor quality of life," says study author Konstantinos Delis, MSc, PhD. He is with the Department of Academic Vascular Surgery at Imperial College School of Medicine at St. Mary's Hospital, in London.
The condition is difficult to treat: Medications help only a little and surgery -- such as artery grafts or balloon surgery to open clogged vessels -- is too risky to use for a condition that is not life threatening. Exercising and controlling factors that affect the disease, such as smoking and diabetes, don't guarantee that the symptoms will go away, either.
Coincidentally, the FDA on Thursday approved a mechanical device for treating blood clots in leg arteries. The AngioJet system is a catheter with a metal tube shaped like a halo, which uses a saline solution to allow doctors to vacuum out clots.
But Delis notes that treatment with the foot cuff is completely noninvasive and complication free. The cuff used in the study is a specially designed slipper containing an inflatable pad, which pressurizes every few minutes, then relaxes.
Delis and colleagues recruited 37 patients with walking problems for the study. They were divided into two groups: 25 got four hours of therapy with the foot cuff every day, and the rest did not use the cuff. The patients used the device by themselves at home and were allowed to split the time spent using the cuff to suit their schedules.