Pelvic Health and Shockwave Therapy: Is It A Game Changer or Is It All Hype?

If you’ve spent any time on social media as a healthcare practitioner, you’ve probably encountered a flood of ads promoting shockwave therapy as a miracle solution for everything from orthopedic pain to urological and gynecological conditions. The marketing push for these devices has skyrocketed over the past five years, driven by claims of its ability to treat a wide range of diagnoses. Recent research, including a comprehensive review published in The Journal of Clinical Medicine, confirms that shockwave therapy is making significant waves in modern medicine. But with all the buzz surrounding this technology, the real question remains: is it truly a game changer for patients and clinics alike?

As a medical professional, my approach to any new treatment, procedure, or modality begins with skepticism. I believe it is my responsibility to ensure that the interventions I offer in my clinic are grounded in solid research, and proven efficacy. When I first encountered shockwave therapy in early 2020, I was highly skeptical. The companies I spoke with made sweeping claims, portraying shockwave therapy as a universal solution for virtually every condition. Despite their promises, I remained cautious. However, after hearing positive feedback from a few trusted colleagues and witnessing a session that yielded seemingly impressive results, I decided to delve deeper into the research.

I found that while there is a substantial amount of literature available, much of it is confusing and, it lacks clarity — especially in the area of pelvic health. The majority of the research outside of orthopedics focuses on conditions such as erectile dysfunction, with little attention given to men’s pelvic health concerns and even less given to women’s pelvic health issues.

Recent advances in shockwave therapy have highlighted its growing potential in the field of men's and women’s sexual and pelvic health. The latest research trends are clear. As a non-invasive treatment, shockwave is no longer considered solely beneficial for orthopedics and sports medicine. Its applications are expanding rapidly in gynecology, urology, and pelvic floor disorders. This shift is driven by the therapy’s ability to enhance blood flow immediately and provide significant pain relief faster than traditional methods, making it an innovative option for conditions such as chronic pelvic pain, dyspareunia, and vaginal atrophy.

However beneficial, the fact remains that confusion abounds when, as a clinician, you are deciding which device would be best for your patients. At the forefront of the confusion when you delve into the research are:

1. protocols vary substantially between devices
2. energy levels and units of measure aren’t consistent among devices,
3. There are popular devices in the research labeled shockwave, when in fact, they do not produce shockwaves and create different outcomes.

If you would like to learn more about incorporating shockwave therapy into your daily practice, register for my one-day remote course Shockwave Treatment: Therapeutic Interventions in Pelvic Health & Demystifying the Research scheduled for October 22, 2024. This course provides an introduction to using this cutting-edge technology in the clinic for improved patient outcomes and an understanding of how shockwave can enhance manual therapy treatment skills. Course lectures cover what is shockwave, how it decreases pain and potentially accelerates healing, the research behind it, the different types of shockwave devices, and the best indications of use for each of them as well as case studies discussing patient protocols and outcomes.

AUTHOR BIO
Stacey Roberts, PT, RN, MSN

Stacey Roberts, PT, RN, MSN (she/her), has been a physical therapist specializing in outpatient orthopedics and sports medicine, since 1990. After completing a sports medicine fellowship and working at several hospitals and outpatient clinics, in 2000 Stacey had an opportunity to move overseas, where she became adept with complementary medicine approaches, becoming a master in herbalism in 2003. From 2004 to 2017, Ms. Roberts owned and operated a cash-based health and wellness clinic on the Gold Coast of Australia specializing in women’s health and hormones and couples' fertility, where she began seeing patients via Telehealth in 2006.

Combining her knowledge of functional medicine, conventional medicine, and complementary medicine, Stacey emphasizes lifestyle changes, and her treatment programs are based on cutting-edge evidence-based research. Currently, she is a co-principle investigator for an IRB-approved study related to shockwave and Dyspareunia.

She has written 3 hard-copy books and 7 ebooks on women’s health and couples' fertility. Her new book, The Pain-Free Formula: A Holistic Approach to Finally Getting Rid of Pain Without Surgery, Drugs, Or Injections, is coming out in 2025. Ms. Roberts has mentored over 100 medical professionals in her women’s health and couples fertility training program. After returning to the United States, Stacey was hired by a national physical therapy company, Aegis Therapies, from 2018 to 2020 to assist in the growth and development of their orthopedic outpatient practice in Wisconsin. She set records for the company related to bringing clinics to profitability faster than any of their other outpatient clinics in the country at that time.

From 2016- to 2020 Stacey was an associate clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Physical Therapy doctoral program until opening New You Health and Wellness, a cash-based clinic, where she brings her knowledge of wellness, hormone health, fat loss, and musculoskeletal health to treating patients with issues related to musculoskeletal injuries, sexual health, and pelvic health. Since 2020 she has been analyzing Shockwave research extensively to develop clear and concise therapeutic applications and protocols for pelvic health, sexual health, and muscular-skeletal patients. She is finding extraordinary results with her patients using this modality in her cash-based practice.

Stacey completed her MBA in 2021, her RN license, and her master’s in nursing (MSN) in 2020. She will eventually complete a nurse practitioner certificate. Stacey has also appeared on World News Now in New York, was featured on Oprah, locally on TMJ4’s Morning Blend, and on several news shows and radio stations in the United States and Australia.