Laser and Shockwave - A Combined Approach?

More and more clinics are adopting different treatment modalities to enhance their current practice. Across the UK, MLS® Laser Therapy and shockwave therapy are present in a growing number of practices, with many clinics now having both.

Generally, these therapies are used as an individual part of an over-arching treatment plan. However, more recently, clinicians are considering how they can combine therapeutic laser and shockwave to offer the gold standard of care to their patients.

To understand how these modalities can be used in conjunction, it is important to be aware of how each one works.

Key considerations for shockwave –

Pro-inflammatory
Best suited to tendons
Chronic pathologies (3+ months)
Uses acoustic waves
Painful
Delayed reduction of pain sensation

For more information on the effects of shockwave therapy see HERE.

Key considerations for MLS®️ Laser Therapy -

Anti-inflammatory
Used for a variety of tissues
Suitable for both acute and chronic pathologies
Uses light
Painless
Immediate analgesic effect

For more information on the effects of laser therapy see HERE.

When we consider how these therapies work, we can then begin to work out a treatment plan for our patients combining both laser and shockwave therapies, allowing us to make treatments as comfortable and effective as possible. For example, MLS®️ could be used prior to shockwave therapy to induce an analgesic effect, reducing the discomfort of the shockwave therapy and allowing for a more intensive treatment to achieve better results. An alternative example might be where a patient presents with an inflammatory chronic pathology (say, calcified achilles tendinopathy) which is acutely painful and where they may struggle to tolerate shockwave at all – a course of laser therapy prior to a course of shockwave may be helpful in this case. Laser to settle the acute pain and shockwave to break down the calcification in the tendon afterwards. Further to this, once shockwave has broken the tissues down and stimulated the healing response, laser could be added back into the treatment plan to encourage appropriate maturation/remodelling of the tissues as they heal.

As more research comes out looking at combining therapies, better or more specific approaches may become apparent. At the moment, we can work on individual patients, base their treatment plan on their needs and where we see the indication/benefit of these treatment modalities.

For further discussion on this topic, please see this short (34 minutes) webinar where we discuss the use the MLS Laser Therapy and shockwave therapy as a combined approach:

https://bit.ly/MLSLaser-Shockwave-Combined

For more information on MLS®️ Laser equipment please see HERE or contact us at:

✉︎ sales@celticsmr.co.uk
✆ 01646 603150