doiSerbia

Effects of natural factors of Niška Banja spa on indexes of mobility of vertebral column in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

Nedović Jovan (Institut za prevenciju, lečenje i rehabilitaciju reumatskih i kardiovaskularnih oboljenja, Niška Banja)
Stamenković Bojana (Institut za prevenciju, lečenje i rehabilitaciju reumatskih i kardiovaskularnih oboljenja, Niška Banja)
Stojanović Sonja (Institut za prevenciju, lečenje i rehabilitaciju reumatskih i kardiovaskularnih oboljenja, Niška Banja)
Stanković Aleksandra (Institut za prevenciju, lečenje i rehabilitaciju reumatskih i kardiovaskularnih oboljenja, Niška Banja)
Dimić Aleksandar (Institut za prevenciju, lečenje i rehabilitaciju reumatskih i kardiovaskularnih oboljenja, Niška Banja)

Introduction. Ankylosing spondilitis (AS) is a disease from a group of seronegative spondyloarthropathies with the prevalence of 0.1% affecting mainly young males, which also gives sociomedical significance to the disease. Among all inflammatory arthropathies, AS is the most suitable for balneotherapy. Thermomineral water of the Niška Banja spa is homeothermic, oligomineral, alkaline, low radioactive radon water and also, in conjunction with mineral peloid, is considered to be optimal for this indication. Objective. Our aim was to investigate the effects of natural factors of the Niška Banja spa as a part of complex treatment on the indexes of mobility of the vertebral column in the patients with AS. Methods. The study enrolled 40 patients with the average age of 48.0±14.82 years and the average duration of disease of 16.9±6.42 years. Patients were treated with hydro- and peloid- otherapy during the average of 17.23±2.71 days. At the beginning and at the end of treatment, a number of indexes of spinal mobility were measured. The statistical significance of differences was calculated using the Student's t-test. Results. All of the measured indexes were better after balneotherapy reaching statistically significant differences in regard to the wall-to-occiput distance (p<0.05), the index of sagittal mobility of the cervical (p<0.05) and lumbar (p<0.005) spine. Conclusion. The application of natural factors of the Niška Banja spa during complex treatment of the patients with AS is accompanied with the objective increase of the spine mobility.

Keywords: ankylosing spondylitis, balneotherapy, mobility of vertebral column