TECAR focused radiofrequency

Radiofrequency energy causes charged particles within the tissue to move, generating heat from within rather than conducting it in from the surface. This reaches deeper structures than any external heat source, and the depth is controlled by the electrode type and the frequency.

The result is increased local blood flow, reduced muscle tone and reduced pain, and it can be applied while the patient moves — which is its main practical advantage over passive heat.

Muscle injury and spasm, tendinopathy, joint stiffness, back and neck pain, and post-surgical stiffness. It is frequently used at the start of a session to make manual therapy and mobilisation possible in a patient who is guarding.

Contraindications: pacemakers and implanted electronic devices, pregnancy, active malignancy in the treated area, and impaired sensation, where the patient cannot report that the tissue is too hot.

Before the active work, not instead of it. TECAR reduces the pain and stiffness that prevent someone from moving; the movement is what produces the change.

Applied on its own over a course of sessions it produces temporary relief and no lasting functional gain, and we will say so rather than book the course.

It produces heat within the tissue rather than at the surface, which increases local circulation and reduces muscle tone and pain for a period afterwards.

That period is the point: it makes manual work and exercise more effective in the same session. Used alone it is a comfort measure.

The tissue stays warm and more extensible for a limited period after the session. Manual work and stretching done inside that window achieve more than the same work done an hour later.

So it is scheduled immediately before the active part of the session rather than as a standalone appointment. Booked alone at the end of a day, most of its value is wasted.

No, the evidence is weak. A 2023 systematic review of electromagnetic diathermy, a group that includes capacitive-resistive devices such as TECAR, found that most pooled comparisons showed no significant improvement and rated the evidence low to very low; even the individual trials that reported benefits reached only low quality 1. The authors concluded that the results did not support adopting diathermy in clinical practice 1.

What is better established is the immediate physiological effect. In people with knee osteoarthritis, a single session raised skin temperature and increased blood flow in deeper tissue compared with placebo and no treatment 3. That supports using it to warm tissue immediately before manual work and exercise, not as a course of treatment in its own right.