Vibration therapy speeds healing of stage I pressure sores in older patients

Despite multiple preventive measures, 35.5% of cases of stage I pressure ulcers (PrU) worsen and progress to stage II or higher. This is mainly due to disturbances in the local microcirculation, which traditional PrU treatments are not best suited to deal with. Japanese researchers therefore attempted to develop a new methodology using therapeutic vibration, which, according to previous studies, can improve microcirculation in tissues. The focus was on the safe operation and clinical efficacy of local vibrotherapy – vibrations generated by a newly developed vibrator. It was hypothesised that this action would increase local venous flow and accelerate healing of stage I PrU.

• Vibrotherapy increased the rate of PrU healing, including a faster reduction in wound area and intensity of redness compared to standard treatment.
• After vibrotherapy, 40.0 % (eight) of PrUs healed, compared to 9.5 % (two) after standard therapy.
• No physical discomfort caused by vibration was reported during the study.

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Study population

Thirty-one long-term care patients with PrU stage I were studied. Age of patients: over 65 years.
Study procedure
The vibration group of patients (experimental group, n = 16) was treated from June 2006 to September 2006 and the control group (n = 15) from October 2006 to January 2007. In the experimental group, vibration was administered for 15 minutes, 3 times a day, for a maximum of 7 days or until PrU stage I was cured. In addition to vibration therapy, the experimental and control groups received the same standard nursing care. The number of healed ulcers was analysed, as well as the rate of healing – before and after the intervention.

Use of vibration in the study

A RelaWave vibrator (Matsuda Micronics Corp, Japan) was used. The size of the vibrator was 61.6 * 18.2 * 11.4 cm (length * width * height). A vibration frequency of 47 Hz and a horizontal acceleration of 1.78 m/s2 were used.
In cases where the PrU was located on the lower limb, the vibrator was placed between the mattress and the pillow, while in other cases the vibrator was placed between the mattress and the bed frame, but always the vibrator was located under the PrU in question. Vibrotherapy was not conducted until 2 hours after meals and the interval between vibration sessions was at least 2 hours.

Results

In the experimental group, patients had a total of 20 PrU in stage I before the experiment, while in the control group, patients had a total of 21. After vibrotherapy, significantly more PrU healed, 40.0 % (8) in the experimental group vs 9.5 % (2) in the control group (p = 0.033).
The rate of PrU healing increased after vibrotherapy (p = 0.018), including a faster decrease in wound area (p = 0.007) and intensity of wound redness (p = 0.023).
No vibration-induced physical discomfort was noted during vibrotherapy.

Comment

The results presented here indicate that local vibration therapy can facilitate the treatment of stage I pressure sores.

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