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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Med.
Sec. Rheumatology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1429660
This article is part of the Research Topic Rehabilitation and Alternative Medicine in the Healthcare for Chronic Rheumatic Pain Disorders View all 10 articles

High-frequency laser therapy: A new alternative to physiotherapy in treatment of cervical disc hernia

Provisionally accepted
Ozlem Kuculmez Ozlem Kuculmez 1*Emine Dündar Ahi Emine Dündar Ahi 2Sacide Nur Cosar Sacide Nur Cosar 3Sükran Güzel Sükran Güzel 4
  • 1 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Baskent University Alanya Hospital, Antalya, Antalya, Türkiye
  • 2 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Kocaeli Health and Technology University, Kocaeli, Türkiye
  • 3 Dr. Abdurrahman Yurtaslan Ankara Oncology Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Ankara, Türkiye
  • 4 Ankara Etlik City Hospital, Ankara, Ankara, Türkiye

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    High-frequency laser therapy has been recently started to be used in several musculoskeletal disorders, but there is still lack of evidence for usage of the device in neck pain. This study aims to compare effectiveness of physiotherapy, high-frequency laser and exercise therapy methods in treatment of pain in cervical disc herniation. It was a multicenter, randomized, controlled clinical trial. The patients aged between 18 and 65, suffering from neck pain, diagnosed cervical disc hernia were included in the study. Patients with a history of cervical surgery, rheumatism, cancer or pace-maker were excluded. The patients were randomized in 15 sessions physiotherapy, high-frequency laser or exercise therapy groups and evaluated with range of motion, Visual Analog Score, Neck Disability Index and Short Form Health Survey-36 before treatment, after treatment, in 1 st month and 3 rd month. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Totally, 150 patients were analyzed. There was significant improvement in range of motion, Visual Analog Score, Neck Disability Index and Short Form Health Survey-36 scores in three groups after three months follow-up (p<0,05). The improvement was statistically greater in physiotherapy and high frequency laser therapy groups (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference between these two groups (p>0.05). The results in physiotherapy and high-frequency laser therapy groups were better than the exercise group. They may be alternatives to each other in cervical disc hernia treatment.

    Keywords: Exercise Therapy, high-frequency laser therapy, laser, Physiotherapy techniques, Transcutaneus electrical nerve stimulation

    Received: 08 May 2024; Accepted: 15 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kuculmez, Dündar Ahi, Cosar and Güzel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ozlem Kuculmez, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Baskent University Alanya Hospital, Antalya, Antalya, Türkiye

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.