Treatment of physical therapy on epicondylitis. Bibliographic Revision

Identifier:  TFG:1775

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG1775

Authors:  Sans Riola, Anton

Abstract:
Epicondylitis is one of the more frequently tendinopathy and it is the most commonly diagnosed elbow pathology. For the physiotherapists, it is always difficult to treat and to choose the right treatment. For this reason, the objective of the study is to analyze the scientific evidence published in recent years and see which treatment is most effective for epicondylitis and, in this way, to help the physiotherapists. Articles of wich systematic review has been made, have been searched on PubMed and PEDro with the keywords “lateral epicondylitis” AND “physical therapy” and the filters “five years” and “clinical trial”. Assessment of study eligibility and data extraction reports of studies have been made by two group members, independently, to reduce the possibility of lose relevant reports. We analyzed seven studies with a total of 546 participants adding all records. High intensity laser and orthotics, percutaneous needle electrolysis, eccentric exercises and phonophoresis don't show a significant enough improvement. There aren't statistics significant differences between the treatment of epicondylitis and pilates sessions added to conventional treatment. There's also no evidence that TENS is beneficial added to conventional treatment in epicondylitis. Most of the treatments used in the various studies are beneficial, but not all of them use the same evaluation tools, and therefore, it is difficult to make a comparison between them and determine what is the best treatment to apply in case of epicondylitis. Studies have few patients and high risk of bias. The review has studies that apply different techniques and it's difficult to relate and compare the results from different treatments. It is important to make more studies comparing the effectiveness, benefits and risks of the different treatments, and with this, decide which one is most effective at every stage of the injury, in each patient according to their characteristics. No results were found to show a significant improvement in treatment group compared to the control group in the studies analyzed. The studies have a high risk of bias, making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about which is the best treatment.