Ultrasound therapy for musculoskeletal disorders: a systematic review
Three articles on PainSci cite van der Windt 1999: (1) The Complete Guide to Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (2) Does Ultrasound Therapy Work? (3) Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder
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.
BACKGROUND: Ultrasound therapy is used frequently to reduce pain and related disability, mainly by physiotherapists. The objective of this review was to evaluate the effectiveness of ultrasound therapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders.
METHODS: Published reports of randomized clinical trials investigating the effects of ultrasound therapy on pain, disability or range of motion were identified by a systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane databases, supplemented with citation tracking. The quality of methods of all selected publications was assessed systematically by two independent and 'blinded' reviewers, using ten validity criteria. Data from the original publications were used to calculate the differences between groups for success rate, pain, disability and range of motion. Statistical pooling was performed if studies were homogeneous with respect to study populations, interventions, outcome measures and timing of follow-up.
RESULTS: 38 Studies were included in the review, evaluating the effects of ultrasound therapy for lateral epicondylitis (n = 6), shoulder pain (n = 7), degenerative rheumatic disorders (n = 10), ankle distorsions (n = 4), temporomandibular pain or myofacial pain (n = 4) and a variety of other disorders (n = 7). In 11 out of 13 placebo-controlled trials with validity scores of at least five out of ten points, no evidence of clinically important or statistically significant results was found. Statistical pooling was only feasible for placebo-controlled trials on lateral epicondylitis, and produced a pooled estimate for the difference in success rate of 15% (95% confidence interval -8%-38%).
CONCLUSIONS: As yet, there seems to be little evidence to support the use of ultrasound therapy in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. The large majority of 13 randomized placebo-controlled trials with adequate methods did not support the existence of clinically important or statistically significant differences in favour of ultrasound therapy. Nevertheless, our findings for lateral epicondylitis may warrant further investigation.
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:
- Relationships Between Sleep Quality and Pain-Related Factors for People with Chronic Low Back Pain: Tests of Reciprocal and Time of Day Effects. Gerhart 2017 Ann Behav Med.
- Modulation in the elastic properties of gastrocnemius muscle heads in individuals with plantar fasciitis and its relationship with pain. Zhou 2020 Sci Rep.
- Association Between Plantar Fasciitis and Isolated Gastrocnemius Tightness. Nakale 2018 Foot Ankle Int.
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- Effectiveness of customised foot orthoses for Achilles tendinopathy: a randomised controlled trial. Munteanu 2015 Br J Sports Med.