Ankle Rehabilitation

Ankle is one of the important weight bearing joints. Due to this and partly due to its structure, it is mostly prone to injuries. Injury to an ankle can increase re-injury to 40-50%. For this reason it is important to strengthen and stretch the ankle prior to the injury to help decrease the risk. Thus ankle injury rehabilitation comes into picture.

On the basis of type of injury, appropriate ankle rehabilitation program is given. Here are the types of injuries:

• Ankle Strains: These are the injuries that affect the muscles or tendons. They occur in response to a quick tear, twist, or pull of the muscle. They result from overstretching or over contraction. Pain, weakness and muscle spasms are the common symptoms of a sprain.
• Ankle Sprain: These injuries affect the ligaments. They occur in response to a stretch or tear of a ligament. They result from a fall or an outside force that displaces the surrounding joint from its normal alignment. Bruising, swelling and instability are the common symptoms experienced in a sprain.
• Ankle Fracture: The dislocation of the ankle bone or cracks on it is a fracture to the ankle. This happens in cases where the ankle is twisted more than it can rotate. In such circumstances walking is not possible.

Ankle injury rehabilitation is done in a wise step manner, starting with non-weight bearing exercises to resisted exercises and weight bearing activities.

Depending on the severity, a sprain is classified into three different degrees:

• First degree ankle sprain:
  1. Little or no joint instability.
  2. Some sort of stretching or tearing of the lateral ankle ligaments.
  3. Mild pain.
  4. Some joint stiffness or difficulty in walking or running.
  5. Little or no swelling.
  
• Second degree ankle sprain:
  1. Moderate instability of the joint.
  2. Some tearing of the ligament fibers.
  3. Swelling and stiffness in the ankle joint.
  4. Moderate to severe pain and difficulty in walking.
• Third degree ankle sprain:
  1. Severe pain initially followed by no pain.
  2. Gross instability of the joint.
  3. Severe swelling.
  4. Total rupture of a ligament.

If a person is experiencing pain from the above mentioned degrees of pain, he/she has to go through various treatments such as fractured ankle rehabilitation or sprained ankle rehabilitation.

The goal of ankle rehabilitation is

• To decrease initial pain and swelling.
• To improve the strength of the joint.
• To improve mobility and flexibility.
• To re-establish neural control and co-ordination.
• To return to full fitness.

After the pain is reduced and swelling stops, the rehabilitation phase begins. This means that the ligament has started with the healing process and it cannot be re-injured due to mild-stress on it.

Ankle strengthening exercises

This program helps to strengthen the muscles which are attached to the ankle joint. This routine is done a few times a week and not longer than 20 min or so.