Affiliations: [a] Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of
Sassari, Sassari, Italy | [b] Department of Surgical, Microsurgical and Medical
Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy | [c] Neurology Unit, "A. Segni" Hospital – ASL n. 1,
Sassari, Italy
Correspondence:
[*]
Corresponding author: Franca Deriu, Department of Biomedical
Sciences, University of Sassari, Viale S. Pietro 43/b, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Tel.: +39 079228294; Fax: +39 079228156; E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract: BACKGROUND: To our knowledge, no studies on foot drop (FD) caused by
peripheral nerve lesion have investigated whether
unilateral training of the unaffected ankle dorsiflexors induced a clinically
meaningful strength improvement in the affected-untrained leg, namely a
cross-training (CT) effect. METHOD: A 59-year-old man, who suffered since childhood from
surgically-induced damage of the common peroneal nerve, performed an 8-week
maximal-intensity isokinetic training of the healthy leg. Before and after
training, patient underwent: bilateral isokinetic testing; functional and
mobility tests including 6-minute walking test, 10-meter walking test,
timed-up-and-go test and ankle ROM; neurophysiological recordings including
motor thresholds, cortical silent period of the hemisphere innervating the
affected tibialis anterior and mean EMG recruitment. RESULTS: After cross-training, the affected-untrained dorsiflexors
showed notable increases in all dynamometric parameters. Similarly, all
functional tests improved considerably. The cortical silent period was reduced
and the maximal EMG recruitment increased. CONCLUSIONS: Improvements in muscle performance and
neurophysiological drive in the affected non-trained limb due to training of
the unaffected side indicate that cross-training may be a viable rehabilitative
approach to foot drop.
