Electrostimulation To Increase Peroneal Muscle Strength in Pediatric Patients With Postsurgical Clubfoot

Background: idiopathic congenital clubfoot is a deformity with various components. its treatment can be conservative and or surgical in order to eliminate the deformity and to obtain a pain-free foot allowing for adequate mobility. objectives: our objective was to evaluate whether neuromuscular electrostimulation is useful for improving peroneal muscle strength in post-operative congenital clubfoot in children. patients and methods: an experimental, prospective, longitudinal, and comparative study was carried out on 10 patients with congenital clubfoot in the experimental group, and on 10 for historical controls. initial and post-treatment clinical evaluations were conducted on patients in both groups. surface electromyography (semg) was used for the experimental group; each patient received 30 sessions of treatment with neuromuscular electrostimulation in order to obtain muscular contraction. results: in both groups, there were more males with the average age or 5.5 years (ranging from 3 to 8 years of age). peroneal muscular strength evaluated through the daniels and worthingham’s test increased post-treatment only in the experimental group, and comparing these results to those of the historical group, a significance level of p = 0.001 was obtained. the motor unit potential amplitude in the semg increased in the experimental group with a significance level of p < 0.05. conclusions: neuromuscular electrostimulation can be used to increase muscle strength, and it is a safe and painless treatment.