Treatment of adductor paralysis by hamstring transposition.

Isolated loss of power of the adductor muscles of the thigh can occur as a result of poliomyelitis, but it is much more likely to develop as a complication of an over-enthusiastic adductor tenotomy in the spastic. In an attempt to correct the adduction of the thighs with its attendant severe scissor gait, obturator neurectomy is not infrequently supplemented by adductor tenotomy in the groin. The original deformity may be corrected, but in its place in some cases an even more crippling handicap is left. The previously adducted limbs now lie abducted, laterally rotated and flexed, and thus a child previously capable of assisted walking may be unable to walk at all. In two such cases I have transferred the hamstring muscles to restore the power of adduction.