Carboxytherapy in the practice of an occupational pathologist: experience of use in cervical dorsopathy in workers of harmful professions

Abstract

The task of ensuring the working capacity of the country’s industrial potential is to preserve the health of employees of enterprises with harmful working conditions. High rates of general morbidity and disability of the working population due to vertebrogenic diseases of the spine, the genesis of which is associated with organ overstrain, microtraumatization and vibration exposure, make the problem of treatment, prevention and rehabilitation of this pathology a priority in occupational medicine. In the present study, the expediency of using carboxytherapy in the treatment of cervical dorsopathies in 2 groups of patients working in harmful professions has been studied, in one of which, along with basic drug treatment, physiotherapy exercises and massage, injections of purified carbon dioxide into paravertebral points are included in the complex of therapy. At the end of the course of treatment in the group of patients receiving carboxytherapy, a more significant improvement in clinical and electrophysiological parameters was achieved: a decrease in the intensity of pain syndrome according to a visual analogue scale by 73.3 %, myofascial syndrome by 33.3 %, expansion of the range of motion by 40 %; according to stimulation electroneuromyography and rheovasography — improvement of nerve impulse conduction along the peripheral nerves of the upper extremities and the roots of the C6–8 — Th1 spinal nerves by 35 %, the hemodynamics of peripheral blood vessels of the upper extremities by 45 %. The extensive physiological properties of carbon dioxide, the availability and safety of the method, the absence of negative consequences, the effectiveness shown in the study allows us to recommend the use of carboxytherapy in occupational pathological practice in the treatment of vertebrogenic reflex syndromes in workers in hazardous occupations.