Monthly Archives: October 2010

Bogus cold laser / LLLT training courses

Posted on 18 October 2010 by James Carroll

I feel sorry for anyone curious about Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) / Cold Laser. There is a myriad of different products with extreme differences in specification:

  • 635 – 980nm wavelengths
  • 5mW – 12,000mW
  • Laser vs LED‘s
  • Super pulsed vs continuous vs gated CW
  • Recommended treatment times ranging from a few seconds to several minutes
  • Intervals ranging from daily to weekly
  • Prices from $3,000 – $55,000

To make matters worse, many training courses are just sales pitches spiced with pseudoscience. You could try reading all the original research but it is a vast field and hard to get a good overview.

Here is my recommendation. Start by reading this Harvard Medical School review (which I co-authored). If you find it too heavy going come on our training course. It is substantially based on this paper but more simply illustrated, delivered in slow motion, you can ask questions as we go, all technical terms introduced in an understandable way.

Here is the THOR training plan

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Posted in Rants | on Bogus cold laser / LLLT training courses

LLLT Literature watch for September 2010

Posted on 12 October 2010 by James Carroll

62 new LLLT papers for your review including three RCT‘s: neck pain with radiculopathy, temporomandibular joint pain, muscle fatigue and a review from the BMJ sports medicine journal on frozen shoulder.

Low-level laser therapy for acute neck pain with radiculopathy: a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized study.

Konstantinovic LM, Cutovic MR, Milovanovic AN, Jovic SJ, Dragin AS, Letic MDj, Miler VM

Clinic for Rehabilitation, Medical School, University of Belgrade, Sokobanjska 13, Belgrade, Serbia.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to investigate clinical effects of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in patients with acute neck pain with radiculopathy. DESIGN: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. SETTING: The study was carried out between January 2005 and September 2007 at the Clinic for Rehabilitation at the Medical School, University of Belgrade, Serbia. PATIENTS AND INTERVENTION: Sixty subjects received a course of 15 treatments over 3 weeks with active or an inactivated laser as a placebo procedure. LLLT was applied to the skin projection at the anatomical site of the spinal segment involved with the following parameters: … Continue reading →

Posted in Research | on LLLT Literature watch for September 2010