Stage 2
The patient has pain at rest and during movement, the pain hinders him in everyday life and in the exercise of his profession. In this stage, passive and active physiotherapy measures are used. The pain becomes significantly stronger, continues before, during and after exertion, and only disappears when the patient is completely relaxed. In most cases (approx. 80%) epicondylitis heals completely already in the acute stage or in stage 2-3.
Physiotherapeutic therapy in stage 2, possibly 3
For the treatment of stage 2/3 epicondylitis, physiotherapists have a variety of local treatment methods at their disposal, always provided that the cause of pain is really in the elbow area.There are already multiple studies, but they cannot unambiguously confirm a treatment method as absolutely effective and unambiguous as the means of choice. I will therefore list the different treatment options according to experience and frequency of use. In the end, the therapist has to choose the treatment method according to individual patient findings and the achieved treatment success after a trial treatment.
Physiotherapy measures after the acute symptoms have subsided
When selecting the treatment techniques, I refer to the diagnosis of “tennis elbow” made after differential diagnostic clarification and do not go into further details about the treatment of other possible causes of pain (cervical spine, thoracic spine, shoulder joint). In medical tapingKinesiotaping, elastic functional tapes are applied to the forearm in a specific form. This serves primarily to relieve the muscles and improve the metabolism, so that the inflammatory processes (edema formation in the inflamed area) can be reduced more quickly.
With a tape system (also in the acute stage), pain can often be relieved quickly and without side effects. The Kinesiotape remains on the skin for about 7 days and should be worn on average for 4 weeks without interruption. It provides good support for the forearm extensor muscles, especially during strenuous activity, and can be used as an alternative to epicondylitis braces or tennis wristbands.
