Page 145 - Veterinary Laser Therapy in Small Animal Practice

Pointing light at musculoskeletal and neurological conditions: clinical applications 131

open door, saying that if MRI had been used, maybe
small differences could have been detected, since it is Summary from a
a more sensitive and specific method for assessment different perspective
of acute infarction. In the last phase of these trials,
a double-blind, sham-controlled, randomized clini- Measuring the success (of laser or whatever)
cal study was performed, attempting to enroll 1000 in musculoskeletal issues requires perhaps the
patients with acute ischemic stroke treated in the first most attention to detail, on the front end and the
24 hours. But after a futile analysis of 566 completed back. Proper diagnoses, pain scoring, range-
patients found no difference in clinical scores, it was of-motion measurement, and weight-bearing
cancelled. [399] Despite this, we hope more studies will assessment all factor in. If you never implement
be conducted along these lines, since there could be a laser on musculoskeletal conditions . . . you’d
various explanations for these findings. For instance, be missing out Presurgical and non-surgical
the treatment parameters could have been non-opti- cases alike are very likely to respond to laser
mal: a human skull is thicker than a murine one, they because at the very core of these injuries, there
were using only 1 J/cm , and many other treatment are injured tissues that the body really does
2
details were not provided. want to heal. Sometimes this requires your
In a different field of application of TLT, a pla- hands (or instruments) to help realign or affix or
cebo-controlled clinical study in humans reported suture, but the vast majority of healing is done
that TLT can have positive cognitive and emotional when your hands are no longer on the animal.
effects [400] related to frontal cortex stimulation. A previ- And laser can help all those natural processes
ous study using a single dose provided clinically signif- between visits, triggering cascades of events
icant relief of depression symptoms [401] ; in both cases, that lead to faster and stronger healing.
a very high dose but a relatively low power density was
2
used – 60 J/cm with 250 mW/cm .
2
Putting together the benefits of laser for blood flow 9.9 Case studies
in the brain, neuronal metabolism, and the described
effects in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases, The following are examples of the clinical use of LT in
a potential field of application in small animal medicine patients with a variety of conditions affecting the mus-
that may show results in the future could be cognitive culoskeletal system, whether these are fractures, osteo-
dysfunction syndrome, although there are no published arthritis, trauma affecting muscle/tendons/bone, or
trials. On the human side, TLT is also receiving atten- other conditions. The same parameters, explanations,
tion as a potential tool for the treatment of cognitive and reporting system that you can find in section 7.11
dysfunction, [402] and hopefully more information in the also applies here. Again, all treatments included both
form of placebo-controlled clinical studies will be avail- CW and pulsed emission, unless otherwise reported,
able in the future. with 20% of the energy being delivered in CW and the
rest within a pulse (low to high) frequency range.

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