[Supracondylar knee-ankle-foot orthosis for post-polio syndrome]

We report a 69-year-old female suffering from post-polio syndrome. Though she experienced acute poliomyelitis at one year of age, she had been well until 67 years of age when she complained of muscle weakness and pain in her right lower extremity and gait disturbance. As she was admitted to our hospital for further evaluation and rehabilitation, we prescribed for her the rehabilitation program consisting of gait training with a supracondylar knee-ankle-foot orthosis, low-load repetitive muscle strengthening exercises, and continuous stretching of her right knee joint after heat treatment. She regained a stable gait with the orthosis. We thought that the disuse and overuse of the lower extremities played a part in the onset of post-polio syndrome and that the rehabilitation including the low-load repetitive muscle strengthening exercises and gait training with a supracondylar knee-ankle-foot orthosis was effective against her disability.