Contracting the muscles of the legs and arms when the symptoms of syncope occur – explains Dr. Raffaello Furlan, Head of the Medical Clinical Operating Unit at the Humanitas Clinical Institute – helps to activate the nerve pressure reflexes directed to the heart, which are abruptly interrupted in the syncope. The muscle contraction, therefore, favors a transitory increase in pressure that, in general, allows the subject to overcome the crisis without losing consciousness. Cases of benign syncope, are characterized by a fainting that can happen to both young and old people, for profoundly different reasons. However, in all patients there is a shared transient and short-lived loss of knowledge and muscle tone that leads the subject to fall to the ground. The sudden interruption of the nerve activity directed to the heart, which causes a slowing of the heartbeat and a drop in pressure, can be avoided with “isometric back-pressure” techniques, which involve muscular contractions of the legs and arms that help to reduce or, in some cases, resolve pre-syncope symptoms such as nausea, sweating, feeling faint, dizziness, and alterations in vision.
