For some elderly, unclogging leg arteries doesn't improve mobility

(Reuters Health) - For nursing home residents, surgery to improve blood flow to the legs yields only limited improvements in mobility, according to a new study.

Knowing that so-called lower extremity revascularization may not improve mobility allows doctors, patients and families to have more realistic discussions about outcomes of the operation, said Dr. Emily Finlayson, the study’s senior author from the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.

“I think the importance of the study is that people can be sanguine of the benefits of this operation in this population,” said Finlayson.

The nearly 11,000 nursing home residents in the study had a problem called peripheral artery disease, which results when arteries in the legs are clogged and blood flow is reduced. Pain, trouble walking, poor wound healing, and even gangrene can result.

To treat the condition, the residents underwent lower extremity revascularization between 2005 and 2009, at an average age of 82. Surgeons replaced or reopened their leg arteries with a small balloon to improve blood flow.

Before surgery, three quarters of the residents could not walk, and 40 percent had experienced a decline in overall function, the authors reported in JAMA Internal Medicine