Appraisal of equipment used in physical medicine and rehabilitation

There is a wide variety of equipment, used in the practice of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR). These equipment may be classified as Diagnostic and Therapeutic. In this paper, the basic essential equipment to run a PMR department in a community/district level hospital are presented. The basic equipment are discussed vis-a-vis benefits, obtained from the modern high-tech equipment by way of cost-benefit studies. It was found that some equipment are desirable at a teaching/referral hospital level, but most of the equipment simply add to the glamour rather than serving any useful purposes when compared to the exorbitant cost. Most of the equipment e.g. LASER, IFT, some diathermies. Combnation units do not show any appreciable therapeutic benefits when compared to placebos. The question arises, whether these equipment are essential, when accepting such equipment, do we have any authentic studies showing their significant benefits or we are simply playing puppets in the hands of manufacturers and vendors. In conclusion, barring a few basic essentials and some precise evaluation equipment, most of the equipment these days are marketed in the name of therapeutic PMR equipment have a questionable cost to benefit profile as compared to therapy given manually by a therapist with (in some cases 0 a little help of the so called out dated conventional equipment e.g. exercise table, weights & pulleys, hot packs etc. The Dictum: "A tablet of aspirin to kill pain is always beneficial to any electrotherapy or thermo therapy," should always be kept in mind while prescribing a therapeutic modality to the patient or ordering an equipment for the PMR department.