he small intestine meridian in the field of Chinese medicine. Protective laser eye goggles were provided to both the patient and the clinician. We did not add on any other conventional therapy during each treatment session, as all the subjects had had these therapeutic interventions before but had failed to respond. Further, no medications were prescribed to the subjects under study, as none of the patients had responded to oral anti-inflammatory agents provided by other clinicians before receiving treatment at our tertiary referral pain center. The only rehabilitation exercises were the home exercises already taught to patients by other physiotherapy centers prior to patients’ entry to the study. Therefore, essentially all
subjects in the current study received only LLLT as really the sole therapy. Figure 3 shows a patient in receipt of irradiation of an acupuncture point.
Results In this study of 35 elderly patients and 50 painful and stiff shoulders affected by painful adhesive capsulitis, the male to female ratio was 1.0:1.3 and the right shoulder was affected in 60% of cases. The study period lasted from 2011 to the end of 2014. All 35 subjects in the study population completed the treatment regimen with good compliance; there were no defaults. No side effect or any patient discomfort was docu- mented during all treatments. Only four painful shoulders among the 50 shoulders failed to positively respond to laser treatment, with no improvement in Constant–Murley score, and eventually required arthroscopic surgery. Table 1 details the relevant demographics of the patient population together with the serial pre- and posttreatment shoulder scores. Figure 4 shows the relative breakdown of the mean value of the constant subscores pre- and posttreat- ment as well as at 2-year follow-up, including the range of motion subscale. In the graph, one can notice that LLLT treatment had a positive clinical effect on range of motion, level of pain, and activities of daily living but had no effect on the strength of the elderly patients. Apart from the four shoulders of two patients who did not show clinical response to LLLT and required surgery, there was a statistically significant improvement in the constant score in the remaining 46 shoulders, from a mean score of 59 at the start of the study (range: 57–62), with standard deviation of 1.1 to a mean score of 71 at the end of treatment