Foot pump prophylaxis for deep venous thrombosis-rate of effective usage following knee and hip arthroplasty.
We recorded the usage of foot pumps during the post-operative period in 29 patients undergoing knee or hip arthroplasty and made 621 recordings. Effective utilisation of foot pumps was seen in 37.2% of cases. There was a gradual reduction in correct utilisation with each day that passed post-operatively (day 1, 60.4%; day 2, 48.8%; day 3, 28.8%; day 4, 21.4%; day 5, 23%). This gradual reduction was statistically significant ( P=0.001) and mainly occurred between the second and third post-operative days. Effective usage was 60.2% overall at night and 36.4% during the day. Our results question the efficiency of foot pumps in deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis in the context of a true clinical setting.
Charalambous
C
C
University Department of Orthopaedics, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Manchester, UK. bcharalambos@hotmail.com
Cleanthous
S
S
Tryfonidis
M
M
Goel
A
A
Swindell
R
R
Ellis
D
D
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019644:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip; D019645:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007866:Leg / Q000098:blood supply*; D008297:Male; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D020246:Venous Thrombosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*