Shock Wave Therapy
Helps with Bad Shoulder

Powerful, focused shock waves have been used for years to break up kidney stones, but now new research suggests that it may also help people with a certain shoulder problem.

Known as chronic calcifying tendonitis, the condition involves calcium deposits around the shoulder joint that cause pain and restrict movement. Shock wave therapy works by breaking these deposits into little pieces that are absorbed by the body.

Although shock wave therapy has shown promise in treating calcium deposits, the studies examining this treatment have all been flawed in one way or another, lead author Dr. Ludger Gerdesmeyer, from Technical University Munich from Germany, and colleagues note.

In the current study, the authors assessed pain and shoulder movement in 144 patients who were treated with high- or low-strength shock therapy or who received a sham treatment, one that looked like shock therapy but actually did nothing. Each group received two treatments 2 weeks apart followed by physical therapy.

The researchers' findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Compared with sham treatment, both types of shock wave therapy seemed to improve shoulder function, the investigators found. Of the two types, high-strength therapy provided a greater improvement in function than the low-strength form.

Moreover, the investigators found that at most follow-up visits, shock wave therapy, especially the high-strength type, was associated with improvements in pain and with reductions in deposit size.

With the exception of temporary bruising, shock wave therapy appeared to have few side effects, the investigators note.

Although shock wave therapy appears promising, the current findings need to be confirmed in additional studies, the authors state.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, November 19, 2003.

Reference Source 89

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