Kontakt 2013, 15(3):330-340 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2013.039

Possibilities of shock wave usage in physiotherapyBiomedicine - Original article

Jan Novák, Marek Zeman^*

Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra klinických a preklinických oborů

Apart from a few expert works there is still lack of literature in the Czech language summarizing theoretical information on the effect of the shock wave treatment. The contribution presents an explanation of the basic physical principles of the origin and diffusion of shock waves, and it also presents a complex summary of the most common possibilities of the shock wave usage in the scope of physiotherapy. Specifically it regards the following diagnosis: epicondylitis radialis humeri (tennis elbow), epicondylitis ulnaris humeri (javelin throwers elbow), calcar calcanei (heel spur), and plantar fasciitis, shoulder tendinopathy with possible calcification, Achilles tendinopathy, patellar tendinopathy and trigger points.
The research part assesses case based impact and course of shock wave therapy at three probands with the diagnosis of epicondylitis radialis humeri (tennis elbow), and it makes part of the contribution mainly for didactic reason. Such small and non-homogeneous samples of probands don't allow to draw any generally valid conclusions in this field and it is only an illustrative example for the therapy. Data for the research part of the contribution were collected on the basis of a qualitative research, the method of case study, the technique of personal case study (case interpretation) at probands with diagnosed radial epicondylitis in chronic stage of the disease and after undergoing conventional treatment, which didn't bring any satisfactory effect. The case interpretations contain examinations of aspections, palpations, measurement of upper limb joint scopes, their length and perimeter, examination according to muscle test. The data were collected by means of preliminary and final examination. For pain assessment, the following specific tests were carried out: the test of painful squeeze of hand, Thomson's test, the stress test of the third finger, the chair test, and the resistance test on m. supinator. In the selected investigative sample there were detected quite heterogeneous results - the first proband showed considerable improvement, the second one got worse and the third one slightly improved. This only proves the opinion diversity of the professional public on the meaningfulness of the shock wave usage at orthopaedic diagnosis, which is later developed in the capture of discussion.

Keywords: shock wave; enthesopathy; epicondylitis radialis humeri; tennis elbow; shock wave therapy; energy flux density

Received: July 23, 2012; Accepted: March 29, 2013; Published: September 27, 2013  Show citation