Post-Polio Syndrome: It takes a team approach
Along with technical issues related to muscle weakness, fatigue, and pain, the challenges of managing this heterogeneous population include patients’ emotional response to the idea of needing an orthotic device for a disability they thought they had overcome.
By Larry Hand
“There are two things practitioners can agree on regarding patients with post-polio syndrome (PPS): It takes a team approach to manage these patients effectively, and each patient is truly an individual case, unlike the last and unlike the next.
“Manage” is the key word here, because no effective pharmaceutical treatment or preventive measure exists for PPS, which, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, affects 25% to 40% of polio survivors. Recent research is sparse, compared with many other disorders, so practitioners are relying largely on longstanding studies done during the 1980s and 1990s.
A key factor in managing these patients, practitioners say, is balancing any exercise or device intervention aimed at maintaining muscle strength against the risk of possibly further weakening the same muscles. Another factor is managing what many describe as a unique patient population and their muscle weakness, fatigue, and pain.”