BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Physical therapy is a major rehabilitation tool after breast cancer surgery. This study aimed at comparing movement amplitude (MA), pain intensity in upper limb ipsilateral to surgery (UL) and at characterizing pain before, during and after a kinesioteraphy program, in addition to correlating such variables. METHOD: Participated in this study 39 females submitted to breast cancer surgery. Physical therapy program has involved UL stretching, free-active and free-assisted exercises. MA was evaluated by goniometry; pain intensity was evaluated by visual analog scale (VAS) and characterized by McGill pain questionnaire in the beginning, after 10 and after 20 kinesiotherapy sessions. McGill has supplied the score of number of words chosen (NWC), of pain evaluation index (PEI) and of its categories. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Spearman correlation test were used, considering p < 0.05. RESULTS: There has been pain intensity decrease when comparing the 1st to the 10th session (p = 0.033). There has been significant MA improvement and significant decrease of total PEI and NWC when the beginning was compared to the 10th session and to the 20th session. All PEI categories have significantly decreased after 10th and 20th sessions, except for the affective. No correlation was found among MA, VAS, MWC and PEI. CONCLUSION: Kinesiotherapy has improved MA and has decreased UL pain, especially in the beginning of the intervention, showing the importance of an early physical therapy approach.
Breast cancer; Mastectomy; Pain; Pain measurement; Physical therapy
