The applications for LLLT are widespread and varied, including practitioners in the following areas:
Complementary/Alternative Medicine Practitioners
Naturopaths, chiropractors, acupuncturists, Ayurvedic practitioners, massage therapists, and yoga teachers can offer enhanced benefits to their clients using red light therapy.
Whether your practice centers on biologically based therapies, manipulative/body-based therapies, energy medicine, or mind-body medicine, LLLT can offer a treatment modality that doesn’t contradict your approach and offers measurable results.
A massage therapist, for example, could offer “red light massages” using two large panels mounted on a horizontal stand. This premium red light massage therapy would come at a higher cost, for which the client would receive extraordinary benefits.
Chiropractors
Red light massage therapy is popular with chiropractors because it is a natural vasodilator, meaning it relaxes the inner muscles of the blood vessels, causing them to widen and circulation to improve. Red light also heals inflammation, which accelerates the healing of musculoskeletal pain, including low back pain, shoulder impingement syndrome, neck pain, joint pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome.
In addition, research has shown that red light is particularly effective at treating neuropathic pain and inducing
analgesia.
Dentists
Red light therapy can benefit your dental practice by offering your patients the pain-relieving, anti-inflammatory properties of red light, which can accelerate healing after dental procedures, and relieve myofascial pain associated with temporomandibular disorder (TMD).
For more invasive procedures, an animal study suggests that LLLT can support bone growth, which can assist after wisdom tooth extraction or in patients with an abscess.
Gyms, Fitness Trainers, Body Sculptors, and Sports Coaches
Give your clients a significant competitive edge with LLLT. It’s completely legal in competition, is safe, non-invasive, and suitable for both elite and recreational athletes—and is often used by Olympic athletes, including the U.S. Track team.
Dr. Michael Hamblin, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a world-renowned expert in LLLT, said during an interview with Men’s Journal: “Red light therapy may help you recover from exercise, sleep better, heal wounds and injuries like tendonitis, reduce arthritis—and it may simply make you feel better, which is something that’s hard to quantify.”
Your clients want to improve their athletic abilities and excel in their sport. And they also want to build muscle, sculpt their bodies, recover faster from intense workouts, push themselves to new levels, and return to their sport as soon as possible after an injury.
LLLT can help your clients achieve these goals and more. It reduces inflammation, which you can learn about in this article; and helps relieve pain in people with Achilles tendinitis, which will allow faster return-to-training. Since many athletes suffer from knee pain, let them know that red light has been used to successfully treat meniscus tears, as this study describes.
A wide and diverse body of research has shown the benefits of red light therapy for athletes. These studies, for instance, show that LLLT promotes less muscle fatigue, more muscle growth, and reduced oxidative stress. A study published in 2017 found that when applied before exercise, red light preconditions muscles to prevent injury; when applied after workouts, it accelerates muscle recovery. This lets your clients perform longer, faster, and harder than ever before to crush their personal best.
Mental Health Professionals
Researchers who study neurological disorders have learned that these disorders have two characteristics in common: oxidative stress, due to chronic inflammation; and mitochondrial dysfunction, which is diminished cellular energy that leads to poor cell performance, low resilience, and slow regeneration.
LLLT has shown incredible promise as a treatment for neurological disorders, including traumatic brain injuries and degenerative disorders that lead to psychological distress and severe depression. This was revealed during a 2018 clinical trial that involved veterans suffering from PTSD. Red and NIR light therapy showed dramatic improvement after 12 weeks of transcranial treatment. The veterans reported less anxiety, better sleep, fewer angry outbursts, and improved mental functioning.
Red light’s ability to reduce oxidative stress also has implications for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Optometrists
Macular degeneration is a devastating eye disorder that is the leading cause of severe, permanent vision loss in people over the age of 60—and it is one of several eye conditions that can be successfully treated using LLLT.
When used long-term as an ongoing treatment for age-related macular degeneration, LLLT dramatically improves visual acuity and can cause a decrease in edema and hemorrhage, with no side effects.
Research has shown that macular degeneration is caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. Thus, restoring optimal energy production in ocular cells using NIR light can be an effective treatment to increase mitochondrial energy production and reduce retinal inflammation.
Studies have also revealed LLLT’s effectiveness in improving visual acuity in patients with amblyopia (often called lazy eye) and reduced corneal inflammation during experiments with rabbits.
In a clinical trial on corneal trauma, red light shortened the healing period by 42%. It has also treated diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, Leber’s Optic Neuropathy, and other eye conditions.
Red light is non-invasive, effective, and safe, which is a huge draw and a welcome relief for many patients who are understandably terrified of losing their sight.
Pain Management Clinics
With an estimated 50 million Americans suffering from chronic pain, finding relief from pain is a major healthcare concern—and one of the hallmarks of red light therapy. Near-infrared light absorbs deeply into the body’s tissues where it reduces inflammation and improves blood flow to muscles, connective tissue, and joints, as well as restores normal peripheral nervous system functioning.
In studies with animals, scientists have found that LLLT can reduce the need for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) by over 50 percent. In human trials, LLLT has been found to reduce pain sensitivity following spinal cord injury. It has also been shown effective in treating low back pain and increasing the regeneration and thickness of cartilage, which helps reduce pain from osteoarthritis.
Physical Therapists
Red light therapy can help restore patients’ mobility and range of motion while reducing pain. Studies have revealed that it promotes bone healing, relieves pain, and treats neuropathic pain, whether your patient has sought treatment for an injury or a degenerative disorder like osteoarthritis.
Scar Clinics
Reducing the appearance of scars and, in some of the most severe cases, restoring mobility, is a top priority for people with prominent scars. LLLT is widely used to treat burns, hypertrophic scars, stretch marks, and other types of scarring. It works by stimulating the production of collagen, activating stem cells, and reducing UV damage. In addition, LLLT normalizes the collagen structure of newly forming skin, so new tissue is made of normal skin rather than scar tissue.
Sleep Clinics
Lack of sleep is a chronic modern problem. An emerging challenge is the use of electronics that emit blue light, which has been found to damage the eyes and skin and lead to sleep disturbances by stimulating alertness during the night. However, normal sessions of blue light therapy earlier in the day do not have similar side effects. The 20 minutes of treatment is far less than how much time people tend to spend being exposed to screens on their computers and phones.
As confirmed by a study of Chinese elite athletes, your clients can benefit from red light as a way to regulate melatonin production. In the study, the athletes receiving red light treatment experienced improved performance outcomes following quality sleep.
Spas and Anti-Aging Clinics
Red light therapy is well known as an anti-aging treatment that can restore a youthful appearance. The use of red light on a regular basis could, in some cases, eliminate the need for laser peels, retinoids, collagen injections, and possibly even cosmetic surgery.
In a German study, volunteers reported significant improvements in skin complexion and feeling; and clinical assessments verified improved collagen density, skin smoothness, and reduction of fine lines and wrinkles.
LLLT stimulates the formation of new capillaries to increase circulation for improved oxygen nutrient delivery to the skin. Research has shown that it promotes collagen production, and increases the rate of lymph node pumping for more efficient waste removal from the body. It also helps to regulate the rate at which cells reproduce and die to restore normal skin cell replacement.
Clients who want to reduce sun damage (sun spots, sunburn, and fine lines/wrinkles), improve skin tone, and reduce the appearance of acne scars, will benefit significantly from ongoing LLLT treatment.
Like wrinkles and other signs of aging, hair loss can affect a client’s self-esteem. LLLT stimulates hair follicles to naturally and safely regrow hair by increasing blood flow and collagen production. Collagen acts as an antioxidant to reduce oxidative damage, which can lead to increased hair growth.
Veterinarians/Animal Naturopaths
Pet owners have expressed the same desire for natural treatments for their beloved pets as they want for themselves.
A 2017 study showed faster healing in dogs exposed to near-infrared light immediately prior to tibial plateau-leveling osteotomy (TPLO). Another study showed a 50 percent reduction in the need for NSAIDs in dogs with elbow osteoarthritis.
Horses, too, benefit from red light. A 2012 Oklahoma State University study found much faster healing and less scarring when LLLT was applied to equine metacarpal wounds
Weight Loss Clinics
Many people have tried and failed at losing weight using diet and exercise alone. In some cases, excess weight can be due to hormonal imbalances such as hypothyroidism. LLLT can balance the thyroid, which may result in easier weight loss.
A fascinating result of red light therapy is a reduction of fat cells. Red light triggers the formation of microscopic pores in adipose cells, which releases lipids.
One study found that just four minutes of exposure to 635nm red light caused an astonishing 80% of lipids to be released from adipose cells. By six minutes, almost all of the fat had been released from the adipocytes in the treated area. The same study also found that red light stimulates adipocyte apoptosis (or fat cell death), which also releases the lipids stored within these cells.
Red light can also control leptin and ghrelin: one study focused on the effect of red light on leptin and ghrelin in sleep-deprived adults. The result was a 19% reduction in leptin and ghrelin.
It also promotes muscle growth to stimulate the metabolism and helps ease symptoms of depression to get your clients motivated to stick with their exercise/diet plan.
How To Use Red Light Therapy In Your Practice
Most practitioners will schedule one client session per hour since sessions can take up to 20 minutes of therapy time. The client doesn’t want to feel rushed, so factor in ample time to undress/dress and time to disinfect the room between clients.
Goggles are not required with LLLT; in fact, red light is actually beneficial to the eyes and is used to treat a variety of eye conditions. However, if a client isn’t comfortable looking at the LED device, you can offer light-blocking goggles as a way to increase their comfort.
Your clients can nap while enjoying their red light treatment, which will stimulate relaxation and activate the parasympathetic nervous system for accelerated healing.
