Effectiveness of Pulse Electromagnetic Field Therapy in Patients With Subacromial Impingement Syndrome: A Double-Blind Randomized Sham Controlled Study
Two pages on PainSci cite Kandemir 2023: 1. Zapped! Does TENS work for pain? 2. Plentiful potent PEMF prevails (defying my cynical prediction)
PainSci notes on Kandemir 2023:
Kandemir et al. tested the effects of a high dosage of strong pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) with subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS). They compared PEMF to a sham in two groups of 125 patients. Subjects received a whopping twenty half-hour sessions of PEMF — daily for 5 days a week for 4 weeks.
PEMF clearly produced better recovery over three months than the sham. The abstract only reports a “superior” result, which would typically not be borne out by the details — a good cynical rule of thumb in this business. Kandemir et al. is an exception that proves the rule that most studies aren’t nearly as good as the abstract makes them sound. But this paper is a clear description of a sensible experiment with properly positive results. Not insanely good, not unbelievably good — but the kind of good you don’t have to squint to see. PEMF really seemed to help.
One study cannot prove that PEMF is actually effective — especially when other studies contradict it. There could be hidden flaws — that is always possible, and statistical jiggery pokery can be really subtle. But there is no obvious problem with this study.
The authors attribute the strong positive result to the high dosage.
For more detailed analysis, see Plentiful potent PEMF prevails (defying my cynical prediction).
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the 3-month effects of pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) in the treatment of subacromial impingement syndrome (SIS).
DESIGN: Planned analysis of a randomized controlled trial with 4- and 12-week follow-ups.
SETTING: Physical medicine and rehabilitation clinic, treatment unit.
PARTICIPANTS: Of the 250 individuals screened for eligibility, participants with a diagnosis of SIS (N=80) were randomized to intervention or control groups.
INTERVENTION: The first group received PEMF + exercise and the second group received sham PEMF + exercise 5 days a week for a total of 20 sessions.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Constant Murley Score (CMS), Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI), Short Form-36 (SF-36) Quality of Life Questionnaire, and shoulder muscle strength measurement with an isokinetic dynamometer. Evaluations were performed before treatment (T0), after treatment (T1), and 12th week (T2).
RESULTS: Evaluation at T1 and T2 showed improvement in most parameters in both groups compared with baseline. In the comparison between the 2 groups at T1 and T2, more improvement was found in the PEMF group in most parameters.
CONCLUSIONS: In our study, PEMF was found to be superior to sham PEMF in terms of pain, ROM, functionality, and quality of life at the first and third months.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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