Conservative treatment of spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. A systematic review

Abstract

Introduction: spasticity is a motor disruption that mainly affects the central nervous system, and it is usual in both children and adults as a consequence of different neurological pathologies. Spasticity is a chronic disorder, so its treatment should be as premature as possible. There are so many therapeutic possibilities as conservative treatment which is important in order to prevent deformities, improve daily activities, decrease muscular tone, keep the range of movement or decrease pain. The objective of this study is to check the effectivity of conservative treatment, as pharmacology as physical therapy, in order to improve spasticity caused by neurological disorders. Development: A systematic review was done following PRISMA standards, between february and may, 2018 in Medline, Cinahl and Scopus. The following MeSH terms were used: “muscle spasticity”, “physical therapy” and “drug therapy”. 13 studies were selected and were classified according to the neurological disorder, and its methodological quality were checked with Jadad scale. These articles analyse the application of pharmacology, physical therapy or both to treat spasticity. Conclusions: Both physical therapy with all its techniques, and pharmacology are effective in spasticity´s treatment, but the best results seems to be the combination of both.