Introduction: A diagnosis of tendinopathy of rotator cuff is received by as much as two-thirds of people who are accompanied by pain in the shoulder joint. It is a progressive disease that begins with acute tendinitis and can progress to degenerative tendinosis with a weakened tendon which can later completely tear off. The most commonly used kinesiotherapy procedures in tendinopathy are stretching and strengthening of rotator cuff muscles. In addition to kinesiotherapy, the use of laser therapy is very common among physiotherapists, since these forms of electromagnetic energy are involved in cell biostimulation and thus stimulate tissue healing. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis was to determine the effectiveness of low-intensive laser therapy in the treatment of tendinopathy of rotator cuff in combination with kinesiotherapy procedures, on the basis of a review of professional literature. Methods: Literature was obtained using the following databases: PEDro, PubMed and CINAHL. Book literature was obtained at the library of the Faculty of Health Sciences. Literature search was limited to Slovene and English language and the period between 2005 and 2015. Results: The literature review included 8 randomized control studies. Of the selected studies, three were comparing the effectiveness of low-intensive laser therapy with placebo laser therapy, one study was comparing effectiveness of low-intensive laser therapy with ultrasound therapy, while other studies were comparing effectiveness of low-intensive laser therapy with other instrumental procedures. Discussion and conclusion: After reviewing the literature, we found out that only three studies have partial positive effects due to added low-intensive laser. Compared to ultrasound therapy, both therapies were found to be equivalent in the treatment of tendinopathy of the rotator cuff. In four studies the application of the laser was performed on painful points, but partial positive effects were found only in one study. We found out that two studies did not use the recommended laser parameters. All studies were using different parameters, different therapeutic procedures and also different measuring tools, which may have affected the outcome of the studies. On such a small number of examined studies, we cannot conclude if the low-intensive laser is effective or not. However, we believe that the kinesiotherapy exercise had a positive effect on the outcome of all researches. To verify the potential effects of low-intensity laser, a several randomized, common and standardized control studies should be carried out.
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