ESWT (extracorporeal shock wave therapy) is a treatment method based on the direction of high top pressured sonic waves to the specially determined target points and providing accumulation of energy on the tissue. It was first applied on human body for lithotripsy in 1980.
In the last 10 years, is has been used as an alternative treatment method for the solution of muscle-sceleton problems. The usage areas of ESWT in the treatment of orthopedics problems can be summarized as follows:
1- Support to the main treatment method in ununited fractures (to accelerate the formation of union tissue)
2- Plantar fasciitis (heel spur) treatment
3- Lateral epicondylitis (tenis elbow) treatment
4- Shoulder joint calcific tendinitis (inflammation of the tendons moving the shoulder joint) treatment,
5- Inflammation origin tendon disease treatment.
The studies show us that it has accelerated the blood stream especially on the tendon and muscle tissue to the treated area in the short term and it has antalgic (pain killer) and anti-inflammatory (effects. It is also observed that it stimulates regeneration especially on the tendon tissue and forms new neoangiogenesis tissue in the long term. Many assumptions have bee set forth regarding the molecular level mechanism of all these observations. Most of them show that further studies are required.
