Other Device Therapies

Device therapies for musculoskeletal pain and recovery share a pattern: a plausible rationale, a large low-quality literature, heavy marketing and modest or uncertain benefit.

Sport and exercise medicine (SEM) clinicians are asked about them constantly, often by an athlete who has seen one endorsed on social media. This page covers transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), interferential therapy, neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy, shortwave diathermy, vibration, and compression and cooling devices for recovery.

The useful skill is placing any new device against the same set of questions rather than memorising each one.