Summary

Introduction. Physiotherapy implies the use of physical impulse like electric current, magnetic fi eld, laser light, low or high temperatures or mechanical effect to cause advantageous changes in tissues affected by disease processes. Physiotherapy permits to prepare the human body to therapeutic exercise, so it is a valuable element of the rehabilitation process.

Material and methods. In order to describe the most frequent causes of referring patients to physical therapy treatment, 5222 procedure charts were analyzed. They included 120 340 different types of physical methods. Only the charts of outpatients, who were treated by physical methods on the basis of referrals from different clinics from Lublin and the region, were subject to analysis. Among the rehabilitation patients, the number of women (68.3%) was twice as large as the number of men (31.7%) and the percentage of town inhabitants exceeded four times the percentage of village residents. The biggest group consisted of people professionally active (46.1%). The amount of people on disability pension was very small (10.1%)

Results. The most frequent causes of rehabilitation were: arthropathy (38.26%), diseases of back (24.03%), chronic diseases of the nervous system (13.06%). The testing material proved that male and female population, or town and village inhabitants differ statistically as far as diseases requiring rehabilitation are concerned. The analysis included: laser treatment (21.33%), local cryotherapy (14.91%) and phonotherapy (11.30%). The analyzed material proved that the choice of the preferred treatment depended on the kind of disease, although there are no unequivocal indications on this subject in medical literature available. Moreover it was proved, that the quantity of some types of physical methods performed (laser therapy, cryotherapy, phonotherapy) increases in the 2nd and 3rd quarter every year.

Słowa kluczowe: cryotherapy, electric therapy, elektroterapia, fizykoterapia, krioterapia, laser therapy, laseroterapia, magnetic therapy, magnetoterapia, physical therapy, rehabilitacja, rehabilitation