Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases in the Context of Physiotherapy: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Understanding inflammatory and degenerative diseases is crucial within the scope of Physiotherapy, as this area of health plays a fundamental role in alleviating symptoms and improving the quality of life of affected patients. The main objective of this systematic review is to investigate physiotherapeutic interventions used in the treatment of inflammatory and degenerative diseases, focusing on arthritis, osteoarthrosis, arthroplasties, degenerative disc disease, disc herniation, spondylosis, osteo-metabolic diseases (osteoporosis, osteomalacia, scurvy, rickets) and its main treatment protocols. The research was carried out in the following databases: LILACS; BDEnf and MEDLINE, using MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms and keywords related to topics of interest, such as: “Degenerative diseases”; “inflammatory diseases” and “physiotherapy”. The search was restricted to studies published in the last 10 years in English and Portuguese. When we added the search descriptors in the selected databases, 227 studies were found. However, after applying the inclusion criteria, 207 studies were discarded. Among them, 62 were published before 2013, 59 were not in the established languages, 2 were incomplete and 87 did not meet the proposed objectives. In this way, we selected 17 relevant articles. Finally, it was concluded that the challenges in applying physiotherapy in these conditions are multifaceted and require an equally complex response. Opportunities for improvement include the adoption of evidence-based practices, technological integration, continuous research, innovative treatments and a personalized and multidisciplinary treatment approach.