Presented in the 5 th world congress of physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 2009 – Istanbule – Turkey

www.isprm2009.org

Hadi Shojaei¹ ,  Nooshafarin Kazemikhoo² , -  Mohammad Hassan Azma^1
1Janbazan madical and engineering research center(JMERC)
²Milad hospital-Lasertherapy clinc.Behsaz gostar institute

Pressure ulcer, caused by reduced tissue blood supply due to long lasting pressure over the underling tissue, is one of the major problems in immobile subjects such as SCI patients and leads to huge therapeutic costs, reduced quality of life and personal independence during daily activities. Management of this problem is always difficult for physicians and lots of treatment methods is developed so far to cure them; low level laser therapy is one of these new methods that is used as a supplement therapy.
As pressure ulcer is frequent among SCI patients, finding a fast and reliable therapy is very important. Our case is a 45 year old man that has been injured at thoracic level (T8) during Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). He has experienced these ulcers at sacral area from the first year after injury. The ulcer has been recovered incompletely during the time but the patient has never been free of ulcer. The ulcer spread and deteriorated during the last 8 month and none of the available treatments were beneficial for the patient. Finally the patient was admitted in surgery ward of Milad hospital and in addition to routine debridement, antibiotic therapy and dressing, low level laser therapy started after suture removal. The results showed that combination of low level laser therapy along with routine managements of the ulcer can accelerate the healing process. This method not only results in better and faster response, but also shows more consistent effects; so we can use it besides other routine treatments.