Comparison between physiotherapeutic alone and combined physiotherapeutic and pharmacological measures in deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis in joint replacement and spinal surgeries

Introduction: Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is one of the common and dreaded complication of joint replacements, hip and spine surgeries. The incidence of deep vein thrombosis among these cases is significant in spite of the various prophylactic measure such as physiotherapy and pharmacological measures. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in our Institute between January 2014 to June 2017. The study included patients who underwent total hip and total knee replacements for various cases and spinal surgeries during the same year. We had a total of 195 patients in the study. Among these, 65 patients were given DVT prophylaxis by physiotherapeutic measure such as foot pump and pneumatic compression device and 130 were given combined physiotherapeutic and pharmacological prophylaxis by giving Low molecular weight heparin postoperatively. Post operatively patients were assessed for DVT both clinically and by Doppler Study Results: A total of 8 patients out of 65 among the physiotherapeutic alone group developed thrombosis [12%]. Among 130 patients who were given prophylaxis by combined measures 9 patients developed thrombosis [07%]. So the results of our study have shown that combined physiotherapeutic and pharmacological measure have an edge over the physiotherapeutic measure alone. Conclusion: Researches which have been done previously have shown that there is no difference in the incidence of DVT among patients treated by other physiotherapeutic and pharmacological measures alone. In our study the result of combined methods was found to be better than physiotherapy measure alone. Hence, the incidence of DVT among the replacement and spine surgeries can be reduced by combined modalities of prophylaxis.