Phototherapy is medical treatments using artificial light such as white light or UV lamps. These therapeutic procedures are used to remedy organic and psychological ailments. Primarily, phototherapy use is for depression as well as various diseases of the skin.
What is phototherapy?
Phototherapy is medical treatments using artificial light such as white light or UV lamps. Phototherapy can also be described as a treatment with lasers, which during the last few years in quite a few medical fields such as ophthalmology, cosmetic treatments as well as in surgery and cancer therapy, could celebrate successes. Within the Balneo Phototherapy for example baths, which contain a brine, which makes the body skin more light-sensitive, are supplemented by a UV light irradiation. Heliotherapy involves treatment with natural sunlight. Professional phototherapy is performed, for example, with infrared light for heat treatment of rheumatic complaints as well as chronic inflammations (for example, sinuses). White light therapy is used to treat winter depression and sleep disorders, among other things. Special UV radiation is used for skin diseases such as psoriasis, neurodermatitis and acne. Phototherapy with blue light has proven effective for newborns with jaundice.
Function, effect, and goals
Phototherapy, with its different variations of light, has understandably very different effects on each body. Thus, the infrared light in particular promotes the warming effect and thereby increases blood circulation. It also has a pain-relieving and muscle-relaxing effect. UV light, on the other hand, is mainly effective on individual skin cells. Phototherapy of this kind can provide the immune system within the upper layers of the skin with the necessary calming effect. Especially in the case of allergic complaints/diseases such as neurodermatitis, phototherapy plays an extremely important role, as it calms the overactive immune system. Furthermore, targeted phototherapy using UV light irradiation can also significantly alleviate inflammatory skin diseases. For example, treatment of psoriasis has a growth-inhibiting effect, so that increased desquamation and new formation of skin cells is stopped. The blue light of phototherapy is used in pediatrics for newborns with jaundice. The yellowish skin coloration is caused by deposits of hemoglobin (red blood pigment) degradation products. This can only be excreted in small quantities by the kidneys. With the help of blue phototherapy, this dye decomposes into components that are easily soluble and are thus released into the urine. Other different special applications are made possible with the help of UV radiation, such as treatment of the blood, which takes place outside the respective body. Phototherapy with bright white light, which resembles sunlight, is used specifically in therapies for sleep disorders. This type of phototherapy is usually called light therapy. Sleep disorders are mainly caused by the shift of the individual bio-rhythm (such as shift work). However, if irradiation takes place at regular intervals in front of a light shower (luminous screen), the organism can find its original day/night rhythm again by means of phototherapy. The trigger for this is the lack of daylight/sunlight, which causes important hormones and messenger substances such as serotonin and melatonin to fall into an imbalance. Sunlight, for example, contains about 3 to 7 percent ultraviolet radiation, and the UV spectrum can be broken down by wavelength into UVA as well as UVB light. The UVB component is responsible for sunburn, for example, and is filtered out in conventional solariums for this reason. The luminous intensity of phototherapy is usually 2,000 lux or even more. For example, normal indoor lighting has about 500 lux, and during the summer, daylight has a strength of about 10,000 lux.
Risks and dangers
Possible risks or side effects of phototherapy usually arise only for a short time. They are complaints such as headaches or skin irritation.Since some forms of phototherapy can cause more serious damage to the eyes, phototherapy should not be used if individual eye diseases are present. Any variant of phototherapy should be carried out exclusively under the supervision of a physician, since UV irradiation, for example, shows a positive mode of action only within extremely small limits. If phototherapy is overdosed, severe skin damage may result.
