Herpes zoster is a common health problem particularly for the elderly. The pain persisting after the zosteriform lesions have resolved is termed post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) and is considered a very common and extremely painful, debilitating complication. There are several approaches available to manage PHN, yet persistence of the pain is a very common vexing problem. Light therapy and in particular low-level laser/light therapy (LLLT) is increasingly applied nowadays. It has been suggested that LLLT is possibly beneficial in the management of many different medical conditions, including pain, wound healing and nerve injury. The present study evaluates the application of low incident energy intense pulsed light (IPL) as a possible photobiomodulative approach that can enhance healing and bring relief pain in recalcitrant cases of PHN in elderly patients.

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Spasticity in cerebral palsy (CP) patients is a critical factor preventing voluntary movement, and can also be associated with involuntary clonus. Low reactive-level laser therapy (LLLT) has been reported as having good overall efficacy in CP patients and also in controlling clonus. The present study was designed to evaluate LLLT in the clinical setting to attenuate spasticity in severely handicapped CP patients. We treated 20 CP patients with near infrared (830 nm) LLLT (16.2J/cm2/point, once/week over 10 weeks) as a clinical study at our university hospital and a hospital connected with our university. For spasticity of the hip adductor muscle, the obturator nerve was the target for LLLT, and the tibial nerve was irradiated in the case of triceps surae muscle spasticity. LLLT was indicated for the 10 sessions and the degree of attenuation of spasticity was assessed after the final session. Some degree of efficacy and treatment latency was seen in 14 (70%) of the 20 patients, 5 evaluated as excellent, 6 as very good and 3 as fair. Little or no change was seen in the remaining 6 patients, and in no patient did the symptoms worsen. We concluded that LLLT was an efficacious treatment option in the conservative treatment of CP patients, that it was easilyapplied, non-invasive and pain-free, and that it did not have any adverse side effects.

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Low reactive Level Therapy ( LLLT ) is now well into its 30th decade, and its beneficial effects such as pain attenuation, accelerated or enhanced wound healing have been very well reported and investigated. For clinics such as ours which utilizes LLLT for medical treatments, LLLT for hypertrophic scars and keloids very quickly became, and remains, routine. We believed that many facilities and institutions have also been using LLLT for the treatment of hypertrophic scars and keloids, but to our surprise there were very few medical facilities using LLLT and practically none for the treatment of scars. Recently, starting in the 1990‘s, there have been several reports where High reactive Laser Treatment (HLLT ) has been used in an attempt to treat hypertrophic scars and keloids. However no literature concerning LLLT for these lesions appears in MedLine, even though the treatment is safe and effective with no side effects and complications when compared to HLLT. The authors herein re-introduce the technique and protocol of LLLT which they have used for the past twenty years for the treatment of hypertrophic scars and keloids. We present a series of representative cases and discuss the most efficient treatment modality in combination with conventional treatment methods.

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The first congress of the International Association for Laser and Sports Medicine (IALSM) had its genesis in The First Japan/ Hellenic Symposium for Laser and Sports Medicine which was held in Athens, Greece in May of 1995 (Fig. 1). The meeting concluded with the strong idea that it should be possible to provide a great deal of help and support to injured sportsmen and women who are trying to get back to their normal regimen of training and competition by the synergistic combination of conventional therapeutic modalities with laser surgery and medicine, in particular the integration of low reactive level Laser therapy (LLLT) applications, the advances of which have been most remarkable in recent years.

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