抄録
In 1973 Plog began his first experiment in laser therapy, mainly in the field of acupuncture and replaced the metal needle with the light beam. Based on Plog's report, the authors designed a laser system to stimulate the meridian points by intermittent irradiation of a pulsed beam through an optical fiber. The first prototype in Japan of a He-Ne laser acupuncture system was manufactured in 1978. Later the He-Ne laser was replaced with the YAG laser, which was divided optically into three beams to connect with three fibers.
Clinical application of YAG laser multi-acupuncture system proved that the laser therapy is effective to treat the muscle contraction headache, stiff neck, frozen shoulder, neuralgia, etc. Although some adverse effects were observed in the cases of vascular headache, the laser therapy could relieved the cluster headache.
One of mechanisms of the relief of pain is thought to be related to the relaxation of the muscles in an ischemic condition. The other possible neural mechanism is that impulses caused by laser stimulation has an inhibitory effect on the asending pathway of pain sensation. It seems likely laser acupuncture has also a humoral effect as Mester reported.
