Compression stockings
Compression stockings (Flight Socks, Support Bandage) are a specialized hosiery designed to help prevent the occurrence of, and guard against further progression of, venous disorders[1] such as edema, phlebitis and thrombosis. Compression stockings are elastic compression garments worn around the leg, compressing the limb. This reduces the diameter of distended veins and increases venous blood flow velocity and valve effectiveness. Compression therapy helps decrease venous pressure, prevents venous stasis and impairments of venous walls, and relieves heavy and aching legs.
Knee-high compression stockings are used not only to help increase circulation, but also to help prevent the formation of blood clots in the lower legs. They also aid in the treatment of ulcers of the lower legs.
Unlike traditional dress or athletic stockings and socks, compression stockings use stronger elastics to create significant pressure on the legs, ankles and feet. Compression stockings are tightest at the ankles and gradually become less constrictive toward the knees and thighs. By compressing the surface veins, arteries and muscles, they force circulating blood through narrower channels. As a result, the arterial pressure is increased, which causes more blood to return to the heart and less blood to pool in the feet.
There are two types of compression stockings, gradient and anti-embolism.[2]
History[edit]
Use of compression therapy is not new. As early as the Neolithic period (5000-2500 BCE), images of soldiers with bandaged lower extremities were found in the drawings of the caves of Tassili in Sahara. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, which dates to roughly 1600 BCE, included additional evidence of mechanical compression therapy for legs.[6] Hippocrates treated his patients' leg ulcers with tight bandages, which were described in his Corpus Hippocraticum (450–350 BCE).[25] Galen (130-200 CE) used wool and linen compression bandages to prevent blood from pooling in the legs, and Oribassius (324 CE) would use tight bandages to treat leg ulcers.[6]
During the Middle Ages, the leading use of leg compression bandages was mainly for therapy. This is evidenced by the works of Avicenna (980–1037); Giovanni Michele Savonarola (1384–1468); Ambroise Paré (1510–1590); Girolamo Fabrizio di Acquapendente (1537–1619); and other scientists.[6] Guy de Chauliac in his book Chirurgica Magna described the use of compression bandages to treat enlarged veins of the legs.[25] Giovanni Michele Savonarola also treated varicose veins with the help of the leg bandages and described their proper application in his work Practice. In 1628, William Harvey discovered the link between venous stasis and the external pressure. Following that discovery, various compression measures were introduced for therapy: laced stockings, elastic bands, and tight bandages with resin. Later, new textile materials started to be used for the production of compression stockings: natural or cellulose fibers (silk, cotton, coconut) and chemical (acrylic, nylon, polyester).[6] It was only at the end of the 19th century, after Fisher and Lasker, German phlebologists, discovered that the application of the external pressure helped to treat blood clots in the lower extremities, that compression stockings started to be used for the treatment of deep vein thrombosis.[25]