2019 Volume 30 Issue 3 Pages 267-271
Graduated medical elastic stockings providing a decreasing pressure profile from distal to proximal has been mainly adopted during the maintenance phase in compression therapy with a two-phase treatment program for patients with lymphedema. In this case study we showed an efficacy of decreasing edema by devising how to wear conventional medical elastic stockings, the ways to be negative interface pressure gradient when donning the stockings with graduated compression profile, during an intensive drainage treatment. A 55-years-old woman with secondary lymphedema having severe severity of lymphatic dysfunction on the right side leg was targeted in the study. The patient visited 4 times. Circumference and interface pressure at three sites on the affected leg (B: ankle, C: calf, F: thigh) were measured at each visit. From the second visit the patient wore two superimposed stockings. Interface pressures, pressure gradient profiles, and the effect of two superimposed stockings (increase in the interface pressure of two superimposed stockings compared to the pressure of the first stocking) sustained stable regardless of the number of visits.
