The effect of laser treatment on pain and functionality in lateral epicondylitis

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of laser therapy on pain and functionality in patients with lateral epicondylitis in combination with conventional physical therapy MATERIAL AND METHOD: 40 patients, 21 male and 19 female, aged between 25-64 years were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups of 20 people by closed envelope method. All the patients were given 10 seances 20 minutes Hotpack, 20 minutes TENS, 8 minutes intermittent US physical therapy and home exercise program for 2 weeks to the elbow area where the complaint was. Additional 10 sessions 5 minutes laser treatment was given to the second group. All the patients were evaluated before and after treatment. In the evaluation, VAS was used for pain at rest, night and during activity while hand dynamometer was used for hand grip strenght. In addition, Patient-Rated Tennis Elbow Evaluation (PRTEE) and Quick Disabilities Of The Arm, Shoulder And Hand (Quick DASH) were applied for functional evaluation. Lastly, Short Form-12 (SF-12) was implemented for quality of life RESULTS: When the groups were evaluated within themselves, there was a significant improvement after the treatment in VAS scores rest, night and during activity, grip strength, SF-12 physical component summary, PRTEE score and Quick DASH score compared to the pretreatment. The difference between the post-treatment SF-12 mental component summary and the pre-treatment SF-12 mental component summary of the second group was statistically significant. Of the evaluation parameters, there was a significant difference in only post-treatment SF-12 mental component summary in favor of the second group. There was no statistically significant difference in other evaluation parameters. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, although it was seen that the addition of laser therapy to physical therapy applications showed positive improvements in decreasing pain, increasing grip strength, improving functional status and improving quality of life, its effectiveness could not be demonstrated. Laser treatment can be considered as an advantageous and reliable method in the treatment of LE because of the lack of significant side effects, short treatment time and easy application. Key words: Lateral Epicondylitis, Laser, Conventional Physical Therapy