Effects of deep heating to treat osteoarthritis pain: systematic review

Abstract

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Osteoarthritis is an inflammatory and degenerative joint disease, causing pain, musculoskeletal disorders and impact on functionality, daily life activities and quality of life. The action of physical agents by means of deep heating seems to be an alternative to treat such disease. This study aimed at verifying the effects of deep heating on osteoarthritis patients. CONTENTS: A systematic review was carried out in Medline, Scielo and LILACS databases as from keywords Osteoarthritis, Induced Hyperthermia, Physiotherapy and Ultrasound, and other keywords such as Deep heat, Microwaves and Short-waves, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, in the period from January 2005 to January 2016, and 986 articles were found. Initially, 16 potentially relevant articles were selected for the study and, after a judicious qualitative analysis, nine complete articles meeting inclusion criteria were selected. CONCLUSION: Physical deep heating physical agents (ultrasound, short-waves diathermy and microwaves) were beneficial to manage pain and other variables in individuals with osteoarthritis in different levels of severity, especially in the long term. However, these effects are better observed when applied simultaneously with kinesiotherapy.