Innovative therapies like Extracorporeal Magnetotransduction Therapy (EMTT) and shockwave therapy have emerged as effective, non-invasive solutions for pain relief, inflammation reduction, and tissue regeneration. While both modalities offer remarkable benefits, their mechanisms of action and specific applications vary.
Understanding these distinctions can help determine the optimal approach for treating numerous conditions, especially those of the musculoskeletal system, to enhance recovery and improve patient outcomes. Let’s explore these distinctions to help you decide which is best for your practice.
What Is EMTT (Extracorporeal Magnetotransduction Therapy)?
EMTT is a modern treatment modality that uses high-energy magnetic fields as a non-invasive tissue regeneration and rehabilitation treatment. It uses a 40% stronger magnetic field than traditional pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF). The greater amplitudes allow it to penetrate much deeper, up to 18cm, than PEMF and over a wider treatment area, allowing for shorter treatment times, fewer sessions, and faster healing.
The high-energy magnetic pulses start at 10 mT (milliTesla) and move upwards. The pulses are delivered via a handheld device applied to the treatment area, where they penetrate deeply into the tissues to ignite a cascade of healing effects at the cellular level. It does this by increasing cell wall permeability, which is hindered by age, injury, and disease.
This allows cells to transport vital substances like sodium and potassium better, enhancing cellular metabolism and tissue regeneration. It also produces a strong anti-inflammatory effect by reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines.
Who Benefits From EMTT?
EMTT can be used for any musculoskeletal condition, especially for acute and diffuse pain, degenerative conditions of the joints and spine, herniated discs, sports injuries, over-use injuries, osteoarthritis, and chronic inflammatory conditions of the joints and tendons. Since it has no side effects, it can be used by any patient, including those who don’t respond well to certain shockwave treatments.
It’s often used pre-surgery to relieve symptoms, promote circulation, improve cellular function and repair, and reduce pain, enhancing surgical outcomes. Using EMTT post-surgery helps reduce pain and inflammation, speed healing, and reduce recovery times, allowing patients to resume regular activity more quickly. It also helps reduce scarring at the surgery site.
Advantages of EMTT
EMTT has numerous advantages in regenerative medicine. Its non-invasive, drug-free approach with no side effects makes it helpful in treating patients, even those who are too sensitive or have not responded well to other treatments.
Its ability to stimulate cellular regeneration, reduce inflammation, and produce an analgesic effect makes it invaluable as a standalone treatment. However, since it’s non-invasive with no side effects, it also complements other therapies like shockwave, lasers, and chiropractic adjustments, to name a few.
Another advantage is that the compact and lightweight system makes EMTT highly portable. It can be moved quickly from one room to another, improving clinic workflow and offering options for mobile practices.
What Is Shockwave Therapy?
Shockwave therapy, also known as Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy or ESWT, is another non-invasive treatment modality. ESWT uses acoustic pressure waves to activate and restore the body's natural healing processes, alleviate pain, stimulate growth, and promote healing in injured tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues.
There are two types of shockwave therapies applied to the body via a hand-held applicator. Radial shockwave therapy uses lower-intensity radial waves that are strongest at the tip of the applicator and diverge and weaken as they spread, making them useful in treating superficial conditions spread over a wider area. However, due to how they’re applied, they may cause discomfort in some patients.
On the other hand, focused shockwave therapy uses higher-intensity shockwaves that break the sound barrier and penetrate much deeper into the tissues. The shockwaves are directed through a cone of crystals, creating a much narrower focal area that doesn’t lose energy as they penetrate, allowing for more precisely targeted treatments that cause no superficial pain.
At the cellular level, both modalities stimulate healing by increasing cell wall permeability and stimulating the microcirculation of blood and lymphatic fluids. They also stimulate the release of neurotransmitters that reduce pain. Additionally, focused shockwaves stimulate growth factors and cause the cavitation release of nitric oxide, which enhances cellular metabolism, stimulates blood vessel formation, and has an anti-inflammatory effect.
Who Benefits From Shockwave Therapy?
Anyone can benefit from shockwave therapy. It works particularly well for chronic pain, tendinopathy, and muscle disorders. It’s also used in regenerative medicine to promote the healing of wounds. Its use pre-surgery helps restore tissue elasticity, strengthen tissues, and improve vascularization, facilitating better surgical outcomes. Post-surgery, it accelerates the healing process, improves vascularization, and reduces scar formation.
Advantages of Shockwave Therapy
It is an effective, non-invasive, and drug-free alternative to conventional therapies. It does not require anesthesia and is considerably more cost-effective than surgery since it’s an outpatient procedure. Patients can resume normal activities immediately following treatment, and there are virtually no side effects except the localized superficial pain that radial treatments may cause. Since it stimulates healing at the cellular level, it helps regenerate damaged tissues, producing long-term healing and pain reduction while reducing recovery times.
How Is EMTT Different From Shockwave Therapy?
The primary difference between the two modalities is the energy source. EMTT uses electromagnetic fields, while ESWT uses high-pressure sound waves. Both forms of energy can penetrate the tissues, where they have complementary effects. EMTT increases cell wall permeability for vital substances like sodium and potassium to enhance cellular metabolism and tissue regeneration. It also produces a strong anti-inflammatory effect by reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines, helping to alleviate pain.
ESWT also increases cell wall permeability while acting as a potent vasodilator, stimulating the microcirculation of blood and lymphatic fluids and releasing neurotransmitters for pain modulation. Focused forms also stimulate growth factors and cause the cavitation release of nitric oxide, further stimulating nerve, blood vessel, and tissue regeneration and producing an anti-inflammatory effect.
EMTT and ESWT are used to treat similar conditions and are increasingly used as highly complementary modalities, achieving even more positive results with faster recovery times than when used alone.
While the practice of combining the treatments is relatively new, early results are positive. For instance, studies have shown that integrating these two treatments in a delayed union in adolescent calcaneal apophyseal fractures better-facilitated bone healing with no adverse effects.
Final Thoughts
EMTT and shockwave therapy represent cutting-edge advancements in non-invasive pain treatments. EMTT’s deep-penetrating electromagnetic fields and ESWT’s acoustic pressure waves can each be used to reduce inflammation and pain, promote tissue regeneration, and reduce recovery times.
While each modality is effective alone, combining the two is highly complementary and often yields enhanced outcomes. To explore advanced EMTT and ESWT equipment and elevate your practice, connect with Maven Imaging for innovative solutions.
