Necrotizing Fasciitis of the Thigh as Unusual Colonoscopic Polypectomy Complication: Review of the Literature with Case Presentation

Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is an infection characterized by necrosis of the superficial muscle fascia and surrounding soft tissues. It usually occurs following skin breaches from penetrating traumas or high-degree burns. Less frequently, it could be related to major abdominal surgery. However, no cases of thigh NF after minor abdominal procedures have ever been reported. A previously healthy 59-year-old male patient underwent a colonoscopic polypectomy. After the procedure, the patient developed an increasing right groin pain. The CT scan showed a gas collection in the right retroperitoneum space and in the right thigh soft tissues. Thus, a right colon perforation was hypothesized, and the patient was moved to the nearest surgery department and underwent a right hemicolectomy procedure. During surgery, the right thigh was also incised and drained, with gas and pus leakage. Nevertheless, the right lower limb continued to swell, and signs of systemic infection appeared. Afterward, clinical conditions continued to worsen despite the drainage of the thigh and antibiotic therapy, and the patient died of septic shock after just two days. This case shows that, although rare, lower limb NF should be considered among the causes of early post-operative local painful symptoms.

Muscle force estimation from lower limb EMG signals using novel optimised machine learning techniques

The main objective of this work is to establish a framework for processing and evaluating the lower limb electromyography (EMG) signals ready to be fed to a rehabilitation robot. We design and build a knee rehabilitation robot that works with surface EMG (sEMG) signals. In our device, the muscle forces are estimated from sEMG signals using several machine learning techniques, i.e. support vector machine (SVM), support vector regression (SVR) and random forest (RF). In order to improve the estimation accuracy, we devise genetic algorithm (GA) for parameter optimisation and feature extraction within the proposed methods. At the same time, a load cell and a wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) are mounted on the robot to measure the muscle force and knee joint angle, respectively. Various performance measures have been employed to assess the performance of the proposed system. Our extensive experiments and comparison with related works revealed a high estimation accuracy of 98.67% for lower limb muscles. The main advantage of the proposed techniques is high estimation accuracy leading to improved performance of the therapy while muscle models become especially sensitive to the tendon stiffness and the slack length.

Current issues of disability and rehabilitation of elderly and senile patients with lower limb loss due to vascular pathology

Большинство пациентов с ампутационным дефектом нижних конечностей являются гражданами пожилого возраста с высокой ко- и полиморбидностью, наличием нескольких гериатрических синдромов, что неблагоприятно влияет на прогноз, снижает реабилитационный потенциал, в ряде случаев приводит к развитию сердечно-сосудистых осложнений, ампутации второй конечности, тяжелой инвалидизации и высокой послеоперационной летальности. Ключевым звеном процесса реабилитации инвалидов с культей нижней конечности является обеспечение их функциональным протезом. В статье приведен анализ заболеваемости, первичной инвалидности в период 2015-2019 гг., гендерных, возрастных и клинических характеристик пациентов, проживающих в Санкт-Петербурге, которым выполнена ампутация нижней конечности вследствие сосудистой патологии. Установлено, что отсутствует информация о выживаемости пациентов после проведения ампутации в различные сроки постгоспитального периода в Санкт-Петербурге. Выявлен выраженный дисбаланс между количеством выполняемых ампутаций нижних конечностей ежегодно и количеством обращений инвалидов в бюро медико-социальной экспертизы для обеспечения техническими средствами реабилитации и направлением на первичное протезирование, реабилитацию. The majority of patients with amputation defect of the lower extremities are elderly citizens with high co- and polymorbidity, the presence of several geriatric syndromes, which adversely affects the prognosis, reduces the rehabilitation potential, in some cases leads to the development of cardiovascular complications, amputation of the second limb, severe disability and high postoperative mortality. The key link in the rehabilitation process of disabled people with a lower limb stump is to provide them with a functional prosthesis. The article provides an analysis of morbidity, primary disability in the period from 2015 to 2019, gender, age and clinical characteristics of patients living in St. Petersburg who underwent amputation of the lower limb due to obliterating artery diseases is presented. It was found that there is no information on the survival rate of patients after amputation at various times of the post-hospital period in St. Petersburg. We have identified a pronounced imbalance between the number of lower limb amputations performed and the number of applications of disabled people to the bureau of medical and social expertise for providing technical means of rehabilitation and referral to primary prosthetics.