There are many different types veterinary laser therapy devices. Class IV, Class IIIB, Class III, and even Class II lasers may be used for therapy. One parameter that separates these lasers from one another is its available power. What role does power play in achieving clinical results for pet pain?
Power impacts the functional depth of penetration of the laser light. The combination of treatment time and power determines the therapeutic dose of energy that is received by tissues at depth. If a therapy laser has low power, the total number of Joules it can deliver to relevant depths for treating most musculoskeletal conditions in a realistic treatment time is very low.
For example, to treat the lumbar spine for arthritis on a large dog with a treatment area of 300 cm2, since it is a deep condition, an effective target dose of 10 Joules/cm2 is 3,000 Joules (300cm2 x 10 J/cm2 = 3,000 J). Below is an example of how long it would take to deliver 3,000 J of therapeutic energy with 4 different lasers of varying power capabilities:
5mW Laser = 10,000 minutes (166.7 hours)
500mW Laser = 100 minutes (1 hour 40 minutes)
3W Laser = 16.7 minutes
10W Laser = 5 minutes
Therefore, treating with a low-powered laser will deliver less than the identified therapeutic dose of 3,000 Joules simply because the treatment time is unrealistic. Companion Therapy lasers enable you to deliver power from 500mW up to 15 Watts giving you the flexibility you need to give every condition the appropriate therapeutic dose. Understand the difference between class IV laser therapy and other therapy devices before you invest.
Please confirm that you can treat an animal directly on the spine w/o burning or injuring the animal and what is the depth of penetration and absorption rate your laser provides. There are as many articles on the positive effects of lasers as there are negative articles. Do you have a verifiable resource that describes the efficacy of laser therapy?
We treat patients with our laser (both human and veterinary) directly over the spine very commonly. With proper technique, this is very safe and effective. Training on what settings to use for specific conditions and proper treatment technique and treatment head selection are all part of our installation process when a customer has purchased on of our lasers. In regards to your other two questions, we have emailed you some more specific literature which we hope you will find helpful. There is a significant and growing amount of scientific literature showing the efficacy of class IV laser therapy as well as over 1,200 clinical trials currently in progress in the U.S. alone involving laser therapy.