O uso da termografia na prevenção de lesões musculares: uma revisão narrativa de literatura

Abstract

Musculoskeletal injuries (MSI) are the most common cause of physical disability during sports, representing a high percentage of all acute sports injuries. Mainly in high-performance sports, there is great interest in optimizing the MSI evaluation and rehabilitation process, in order to minimize the athlete's absence from training and competitions. In this context, infrared thermography (IRT) is a technique used to investigate, in a complementary way, pain; Furthermore, it enables to obtain thermal images of the body's surface and measure local temperature. The present study aimed to carry out a literature review on the use of thermography as an assessment tool for MSI, and on the standardization of control variables. So 28 articles that used thermography, with standardized parameters to assess body temperature, were included. It was concluded that it is safer to collect thermographic images by keeping the environment at a temperature between 19 and 23°C, the ideal being 21°C, carrying out acclimatization for 15 minutes, with the patient in the position and location to be evaluated exposed with the minimal clothing. There is no consensus regarding the ideal relative humidity. It is believed that new studies will make it possible to obtain justifications for the choices of parameters assigned to each control variable.