Pneumatic ankle tourniquet: clinical and electrophysiologic study

Current orthopedic practice in surgical procedures involving the foot calls for tourniquet of the lower extremity. It is suggested that tourniquet application at the ankle may be equally effective and less traumatic. An experiment to document the sensorimotor and electrophysiologic changes that occur with the use of the pneumatic ankle tourniquet indicated the feasibility of such a procedure. An ankle tourniquet was applied at 250mmHg for 1 hour on 40 healthy adults divided into 2 groups of 20 each. In group 1 there was no temperature control and in group 2 skin temperature was kept constant at 32C. Sensorimotor evaluations were done clinically and electrophysiologically to include proximal and distal motor latencies, conduction velocities and amplitudes of peroneal and tibial nerves, and sensory latencies and amplitudes of sural and medial plantar nerves at fixed points and at fixed times. Final data show no strong indication of difference in nerve parameter abnormalities between subjects of both groups and suggest that change in different parameters of nerve function during tourniquet application is secondary to ischemia and anoxia rather than to mechanical compression.