As many as 115 patients with posttraumatic and immobilized contractures of humeral and knee joints are treated using postisometric relaxation and acupuncture. The best results are obtained in the associated use of the given methods. The mechanisms of the therapeutic action of the given methods are dis cussed.

The clinical and electromyographic examination of musculi quadriceps femoris is performed in 13 patients with extension contractures of the knee joints. The correlation between the pronounced hypotrophy, hypertension and denervational process stage in the muscle is revealed. The pathophysiological mechanisms of the formation of hypertension of the muscles in passive contracture are considered.

No abstract

Among the mechanisms of motor disorders in central motor neuron lesions, along with changes in descending impulses to motoneurons, segmental disorders are also assumed. In 1879, Charcot proposed the hypothesis of transsynaptic degeneration of motoneurons in lesions of central motor neurons. Subsequently, changes in motoneurons in experimental and clinical lesions of the pyramidal tract were observed by many, though not all researchers. Charcot's theory received as if a new confirmation in electromyographic studies, which showed a decrease in the number of motor units and increase in the territories of the preserved motor units in the muscles of the affected side in patients with hemiplegia.