Abstract

Pain experienced in the plantar part of the heel is the most common cause of its dysfunction in adults. In many cases the underlying reason is a calcaneal spur. This study aimed to assess and compare focused and radial shockwave therapies in terms of their efficacy in treating a symptomatic calcaneal spur. Twenty patients with a symptomatic calcaneal spur were enrolled in the experiment. The pa­tients were divided into 2 comparative groups A and B (each consisting of 10 patients) that received focused shockwave and radial shockwave therapies, respectively. Each patient was given 5 treatments at weekly intervals. Immediately after treatment ended a statistically significant reduction in all types of pain considered in the experiment was noted in both comparative groups. A further reduction in pain was observed after another three weeks. The comparative groups were similar in terms of relative changes in all types of pain. Additionally, focused shockwave therapy was found to have significantly affected patients’ stabilographic parameters. Both focused shockwave therapy and radial shockwave therapy are physical modalities that can be safely and effectively used to treat a symptomatic calcaneal spur. Their main advantage is good analgesic effect directly after treatment. This effect is even more distinct after another 3 weeks.

Key words:

focused shockwave, radial shockwave, calcaneal spur