Abstract
There is increasing use of pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) as adjunctive therapy for a variety of musculoskeletal injuries. PEMF in current orthopaedic clinical practice has been employed to treat delayed and nonunion fractures1–5, rotator cuff tendinitis6, spinal fusions7 and avascular necrosis8. A clinically relevant response to the PEMF signals in current clinical use is generally not immediate, requiring daily treatment for several months in the case of non-union fractures (although experimental signals now exist which elicit significantly faster response3). In contrast, clinically effective electromagnetic treatment of sprains, strains, contusions and other soft tissue injuries such as wounds, would require a physiologically meaningful response in hours or days. Until recently, application of EMF signals to other pathologies such as soft tissue and musculoskeletal injuries and post-surgical, post-traumatic and chronic wounds has been sparse. This review summarizes the present status of the use of low or non-thermal pulsed radio frequency (PRF) signals for such pathologies.
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