MS patient has had a fall and now has a sprained ankle- RX ideas please.

Hi everyone,

I am a student on placement atm. One of the patients I am seeing has MS and has recently suffered a fall and as a result has sprained her ankle. Is there anything in particular I need to be aware about during our treatment sessions?

Please could you give me some ideas of things I could look into for our treatment sessions?

Many thanks

Milly

Yes you should be aware that your patient has MS. This can affect muscle tone (e.g. spasm) because of pain generated by the ankle. altered sensitivity, reduced propriocepsis. Medication she is taking could also put some obstacles in your way.
Taping or splinting can potentially have a negative effect (increase of sensoric imput in the area of the ankle).
Could try to reduce any spasm by getting limb out of pattern of extension hip and plantarflexion-inversion ankle. the knee and hip may go into flexion though but this is a wild guess. In general chose a tactic which avoids pain.

Use the RICE method to treat the pain. Then, you can make the patient perform exercises to increase the mobility of foot. The things that you must consider is to ask the patient to be cautious while walking on uneven surfaces and to wear appropriate shoes.