Page 42 - Veterinary Laser Therapy in Small Animal Practice

28 Veterinary Laser Therapy in Small Animal Practice

is still insufficient or lacks properly designed studies. usual treatments we would perform for a large dog in
This should encourage the performance of more clini- small animal practice in terms of dose and frequency of
cal studies, especially now that class IV lasers are more treatment. [111] Of course, this does not mean we should
easily available; treating pain with LT often requires always use super-high power for patients in pain. The
higher doses than those used for wound healing or pain itself can put them in a state in which they are
to achieve an anti-inflammatory effect. In his review, especially sensitive to high power densities – keep that
Bjordal [35] found 5 J to be the minimum energy needed in mind – but higher power and higher dose is the first
to elicit effects, and 10–15 J/cm is a very common strategy when dealing with refractory pain.
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dose. Higher power is also useful; in their review, de
Andrade et al. [110] found the studies that compared
lower and higher power reported that higher power Summary from a
was more effective in providing analgesia. Class IV different perspective
lasers were approved for therapy by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in 2003, and of course they are Pain is the primary reason for a trip to the
less affordable than lower powered lasers. Therefore, veterinary clinic. The causes and types of pain vary
it is plausible that when more clinical studies are per- very widely, as do the mechanisms by which laser
formed with class IV devices, the evidence will become helps the pain to subside. All that said, the name
more consistent. Only a few have been published so far, of the game is consistency in measuring pain, over
regarding either analgesia or other fields. They include time for a given patient as well as across patients
a randomized, controlled clinical study of patients within your clinic. When you have an equation
with epicondylitis; a class IV (10 W) laser proved to with this many parameters, you have to control
be analgesic and improve arm functionality, using the ones you can, and quality pain scoring is the
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3000 J/elbow (about 6.6 J/cm ) and a total of ten ses- best start.
sions over 18 days. This regime is quite similar to the

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