Local & State Headlines

Laser therapy eases Phoebe patients' pain

• A few sessions of laser therapy may be what it takes to alleviate some patients' pain.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — These days, lasers aren’t just for searing, cauterizing or pointing. They are for healing, too.

At Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s physical and occupational therapy departments, the laser has become a source therapy.

While hardly a new concept in regions such as Europe, Phoebe’s laser therapy is one of the few offered in Georgia.

Kathleen Ellis, a staff physical therapist at Phoebe, compared laser therapy and its effect on tissue to photosynthesis and a tree.

“It takes in energy from the light and changes it into what we need,” she said. “The body has light receptors which change things on a cellular level.”

The laser is used to target trigger points. It can increase circulation, decrease swelling, improve tissue extendability and is recommended for patients who experience conditions including arthritis, muscle tension and spasms, acute and chronic pain and post- operative wounds.

“It’s a very quick treatment,” Ellis said, noting that to experience results, most, though not all, patients need 10-12, 15-minute sessions.

Although Sue Webb, service line manager for physical therapy at Phoebe, knew the research behind laser therapy, the treatment is so simple that at first she wondered if it would work.

But after seven sessions, Webb said her pain stopped.

“This was a new treatment that was available, and I had results,” said Webb, who has suffered wrist pain on and off for several years.

Phoebe occupational therapist Sabine Patton is quite familiar with laser treatment. Before moving to Albany more than a decade ago, Patton was using laser treatment on her patients in 1994 and 1995 in her native Austria.

Patton points out that the laser doesn’t hurt one bit.

“Even though it’s a red light,” she said, “it doesn’t really get warm.”

Phoebe held a one-month trial with the laser in August 2006. It purchased the $5,000 machine earlier this year, and began offering the treatment full-time in October.

To be treated with the laser, patients must be referred to the therapist by their physicians and must undergo a standard physical or occupational therapy evaluation, which may be covered by insurance.

“It seems to work when other modalities fail,” Patton said of laser therapy.

Because laser therapy, which is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is still relatively new, it doesn’t have the treatment coding recognized by insurance companies, Ellis said. To that end, the treatment at Phoebe is available on a cash-only basis at $15 for 15 minutes.

More Headlines>>