The Effect of General Anesthesia on Passive-Knee-Extension Range of Motion

Context: Flexibility is promoted as essential to physical fitness, but the mechanisms limiting it are not fully understood. Objective: To investigate the effects of general anesthesia on hamstring extensibility. Design: Repeated measures. Setting: Hospital operating room. Subjects: Eight volunteers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sport rehabilitation 2001-11, Vol.10 (4), p.257-266
Main Authors: Dompier, Thomas P., Denegar, Craig R., Buckley, W.E., Miller, S. John, Hertel, Jay, Sebastianelli, Wayne J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bone surgery
Range of motion
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Summary:Context: Flexibility is promoted as essential to physical fitness, but the mechanisms limiting it are not fully understood. Objective: To investigate the effects of general anesthesia on hamstring extensibility. Design: Repeated measures. Setting: Hospital operating room. Subjects: Eight volunteers undergoing orthopedic surgeries unrelated to the tested limb. Measurement: Three measurements of passive knee extension (PKE) taken before and after administration of general anesthesia. The force applied during the measurements was consistent between trials. Results: Mean PKE range of motion (ROM) was significantly greater before anesthesia (75.0° ± 11.8°) than after (53.3° ± 17°; t = 5.6, P < .001). Pearson product correlation revealed a significant correlation between the mean difference in PKE ROM between treatment conditions and subjects’ body weight (r = .91, P < .05). Conclusions: The findings might be attributable to diminished neural drive to the antagonist muscle groups and suggest a more complex neural control of flexibility than simply neural drive to an agonist muscle.
ISSN:1056-6716
1543-3072
DOI:10.1123/jsr.10.4.257