A proposed method to assure the efficiency of thermotherapy treatments

Abstract

Thermotherapy is a type of treatment increasingly indicated for diseases such as osteoarthritis, hypertonia, muscle contractures, rheumatoid arthritis, skeletal muscle injuries, edema; among others. This increase in the use of thermotherapy treatments has increased the number of thermal agents being used for therapeutic purposes, but in most cases these do not produce the desired effects of thermotherapy. One of these effects is the increase in local oxygenation of the area to which the thermal agent was applied; Therefore, in this experiment, a thermal conduction agent for thermotherapy treatment was applied to an upper extremity so the oxygenation could be measured in a non-invasive way; This treatment was applied to one group of users, while no treatment was applied to another in order to compare the blood oxygen levels of the groups and see if the thermotherapy treatment is really working. The chosen way to measure blood oxygen saturation was with a pulse oximeter and it was expected that increase in the users to whom the treatment was applied, while in the control group there shouldn´t be changes in their oximetry levels. Finally, this was verified and therefore it is possible to propose the measurement of oxygen saturation levels in blood to quantify the effectiveness of a thermal agent for thermotherapy.