Eficácia da fisioterapia na epicondilite lateral: uma revisão da literatura

Abstract

Introduction: Lateral epicondylitis is a painful syndrome located in the region of the lateral epicondyle. Several interventions are described for the treatment of epicondylitis, providing symptom relief and improvement of the patients' functional status. As an alternative, physical therapy has been increasingly used in its treatment, however, there is still difficulty in establishing the best and most effective intervention. Objective: The study aimed to conduct a literature review on the effectiveness of physical therapy treatments to relieve pain and improve function in individuals with lateral epicondylitis. Methodology: The search was conducted in the SCIELO, LILACS, PUMED, and BIREME databases including articles published from January 2010 to December 2019 written in the English language. The articles selected were the studies that featured individuals with lateral epicondylitis and use of intervention involving physical therapy and outcome of improvement of pain and function. Results: The studies presented were clinical trials ranging in sample size from 15 to 177 patients with lateral epicondylitis. The types of intervention varied among the studies: extracorporeal shock wave therapy, therapeutic ultrasound, Cyriax method, stabilization instruments such as splint and band on the forearm, kinesiotapping, strengthening of the scapular stabilizers of the inferior trapezius, middle trapeziusand serratus anterior, thus, twelve studies were selected for the study. The present interventions were eccentric stretching and strengthening of the wrist extensors. Conclusion: Through the selected articles, we can conclude that conservative treatment with physical therapy was effective in reducing pain and improving function in individuals with lateral epicondylitis. The eccentric exercise was the method that showed the best results in the studies, especially when associated with immobilization such as splints and strengthening of the scapular stabilizers. Nevertheless, the use of several interventions in the same study may confound the results and make interpretation difficult. Thus, studies that use isolated interventions compared to the control group are needed to evaluate the real effectiveness of each method.