Diathermy
Sign in to saveDiathermy is electrically induced heat or the use of high-frequency electromagnetic currents as a form of physical therapy and in surgical procedures. The earliest observations on the reactions of the human organism to high-frequency electromagnetic currents were made by Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval. The field was pioneered in 1907 by German physician Karl Franz Nagelschmidt, who coined the term diathermy from the Greek words () and (), literally meaning 'heating through' (adjectival forms: 'diathermal' and 'diathermic').
Key facts
- Medical intervention.Name
- Diathermy
- Medical intervention.MeshID
- D003972
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
21,780 papers- Diathermy smoke shown to be hazardous, so why are we not protecting ourselves?Journal of perioperative practice · 2018
- Role of shortwave and microwave diathermy in peripheral neuropathy.The Journal of international medical research · 2019
- Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Diathermy Plume.The Australasian journal of dermatology · 2025
- Continuous short-wave (radio-frequency) diathermy.British journal of sports medicine · 1989
- Intra-ocular diathermy forceps.Acta ophthalmologica · 2018
via PubMed
~15 min read
Encyclopedic overview
11 sectionsContents
- History
- Uses
- Physical medicine and rehabilitation
- Short wave
- Microwave
- Surgery
- Types
- Risks
- Military
- See also
- References
Diathermy is electrically induced heat or the use of high-frequency electromagnetic currents as a form of physical therapy and in surgical procedures. The earliest observations on the reactions of the human organism to high-frequency electromagnetic currents were made by Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval. The field was pioneered in 1907 by German physician Karl Franz Nagelschmidt, who coined the term diathermy from the Greek words () and (), literally meaning 'heating through' (adjectival forms: 'diathermal' and 'diathermic').
Diathermy is commonly used for muscle relaxation and induce deep tissue heating for therapeutic purposes in medicine. It is used in physical therapy to deliver moderate heat directly to pathologic lesions in the deeper tissues of the body.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Diathermy” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.