Safety and Contraindications

Abstract

Safe use of vibration platforms necessitates avoiding exposures known to cause whole body and hand arm vibration injuries from industrial tools in the workplace. Although, after years of using vibration machines in medicine and exercise, reports of adverse events are rare, and caution is warranted because, even in the workplace, awareness of the potential types of injuries (neural, vascular, and musculoskeletal) and vibration parameters (acceleration, frequency Hz, and exposure duration) is insufficient. With regards to vibration exercise and therapy, there have been only very few reports of adverse events. However, the fact that none of them had been reported to responsible authorities suggests that there could be an unknown number of unreported cases. Educating users, providers, and manufacturers about the dangers of vibration is discussed with the objective to preemptively avoid ill health effects. Studies are needed to more precisely define the physical properties of vibration being utilized so that the beneficial effects can be linked to specific protocols. These data can assist protocol improvement and guide engineering of safe and effective machines. As the population of users expands from normal healthy individuals to include more with disease and aging deficiencies, susceptibility to vibration injury increases and necessitates individualized treatment considerations. As a result of such studies, new contraindications could emerge for the safe use of vibration exercise and vibration therapy.