Study of pressure of the normal anterior tibial compartment in different age groups using the slit-catheter method

Using the slit-catheter method, the pressure of the anterior tibial compartment was studied in thirty volunteers, whose ages ranged from seventeen to eighty-five years, at rest and during and after exercise. The average resting pressure was +5.1 millimeters of mercury. There was a wide variation between subjects, although 95 per cent of them had a resting pressure of less than twelve millimeters of mercury. This pressure was not consistently or significantly affected by age. The pressure increased with exercise, but in an average of 3.4 minutes after the exercise was stopped it returned to within one millimeter of mercury of the resting pressure. The resting pressure was also found to be affected by the positions of the lower extremity and the trunk during measurement. To reduce this effect, it is recommended that for measurement of pressure in the lower extremity the patient should be lying supine and the big toe should be pointing vertically upward.