Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The Journal of Turkish Sport Sciences,, cilt.6, sa.2 , ss.37-50, 2023 (Hakemli Dergi)
The sciatic nerve damage can cause symptoms such as loss of muscle strength and pain as a result of trauma to the nerve due to pressure, stretching or cutting, as well as lifelong disability. Despite the increasing knowledge about sciatic nerve regeneration mechanisms, full functional recovery is still insufficient. It is well known that exercise improves overall health. The current study aimed to reveal the therapeutic effects of swimming exercises using electrophysiological methods in rats with experimental sciatic nerve injury. Eighteen male Wistar Albino rats were used in this study. The subjects were randomly divided into three groups (n=6): 1-Control (C), 2-Intact Exercise (IntE), 3-Operated Exercise (OpE) groups. Sciatic nerve injury was performed by inducing experimental damage to the left hind extremity sciatic nerve of rats. Swimming exercise was applied for 45 minutes a day, five days a week (25°C) for four weeks. The level of regeneration was evaluated by taking motor function test-sciatic function index and EMG recording performed at the beginning of the experiment (day 0), after nerve damage (day 3), and at the end of the experiment (day 35). It was determined that sciatic function index, amplitude of motor and sensory nerves, peak-peak amplitude, percentage of compound muscle action potential, motor and sensory nerve conduction velocities, which decreased after sciatic nerve injury, increased with swimming exercise (p<0.05). Positive and significant effects were observed in terms of nerve regeneration, motor functional recovery, and electrophysiological parameters in the swimming exercise groups. This study showed that swimming exercise has effective results in the level of recovery after sciatic nerve injury.
Keywords: Exercise, electromyography (EMG), recovery, sciatic function index (SFI), sciatic nerve injury