Infra Red Rays an Effective Tool for Pain Management?

Abstract

This prospective, clinical trials were conducted on 5147 patients at Physiotherapy department of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital Lahore from July 1999 to December 2001. Physiotherapy mainly deals with the management of acute and chronic musclo-skeletal pain which is very difficult to treat. Purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of non-luminous, high voltage infra-red rays with a broader area of application in the management of pain arising from deeply located pathology and can it alone be labeled as a treatment of choice in the management of musculoskeletal disorders? Now luminous infra-red rays (NLIRR) with a voltage of 1980/2070 voltage 1350W, 5060HZ with a broader area of exposure i.e 76emm*35 cm, was employed. Traditionally an universally, it is considered good only for the management of superficial pathology but present study strongly reflects that it is equally suitable for deeply located pathology without any side effect. Its application for low back pain, sciatica, frozen shoulder, pelvic inflammatory disease etc produced good and long- term results. Moreover it has more applications over other modalities like short wave diathermy, micro wave diathermy, ultra sound and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation e.g. in mastalgia. Thus this study rejects the concept of NLIRR being superficial. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to use NLIRR alone as a treatment of choice in both superficial and deep pathology whether acute or chronic.