Author/Authors :
Ghaffarinejad، Farahnaz نويسنده Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Moslemi Haghighi، Farzaneh نويسنده Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Pirouzi، Soraya نويسنده Center for Human Science Research, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran; , , Taghizadeh، Shohreh نويسنده Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Motiallah، Tahereh نويسنده Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Salehi Dehno، Nasrin نويسنده Department of Physical Therapy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health services, Tehran, Iran ,
Abstract :
Background: Heat therapy is one of the natural treatments that can affect the
information transferred by the proprioceptive receptors. Heat has an effect on
the conduction velocity of peripheral nerves, but the exact effect of two kinds of
deep and superficial heat on the joint position sense is not known clearly. The
present study aimed to compare the effect of deep and superficial heat on ankle
joint position sense.
Methods:Thirty healthy male students aged between 18 to 30 y/o participated
in this study. Deep heat by short-wave diathermy and superficial heat by water of
42 ?C were applied for 15 minutes in two sessions for all participants.
In all of the tests, active and passive ankle joint position sense in dorsiflexion
and plantarflexion were measured by pedal goniometers prior to and after heat
application. The Non-Parametric-Paired T-test Wilcoxon and Non-ParametricPaired T-test Mann-Withney were used to analyze the data.
Results:The superficial heat does not have any positive or negative effect on
the ankle joint position sense. After the deep heat, the absolute angular error
of active dorsiflexion was increased, but passive plantarflexion was decreased
significantly. Comparing the two types of heat, the results revealed that the deep
heat increased the absolute angular error of active dorsiflexion significantly
more than superficial heat.
Conclusion:According to the results, deep heat therapy improves passive ankle
joint position sense in plantar flexion, but it worsens the active joint position
sense of dorsiflexion. Therefore, it seems that after applying deep heat therapy on
an ankle joint, exercise prescriptions need to be cautious.
