IMPORTANCE OF REST IN THE TREATMENT OF EARLY CONVALESCENT POLIOMYELITIS

IN THE accepted definition of the term, there is no known "cure" for poliomyelitis. During the early convalescent stage when the greatest amount of recovery is taking place, various forms of treatment are being employed, the particular modality chosen and championed being a personal choice rather than one scientifically proved to be the most efficacious.

There are those who lay great stress upon pool therapy to promote coordinated joint motion. Others emphatically decry the use of underwater therapy, claiming such activity leads to rapid fatigue and harmful substitution, and they stress selective muscle reeducation with the patient on a table. There are those who are enthusiastic advocates of electrical stimulation for muscle reeducation and prevention of loss of tone in involved muscles, and there are others who object to the use of electrical stimulation on the ground that paretic muscles are thereby rapidly overfatigued. There are those who employ drugs