Light Emitting Diodes (LED’s) have been around for a long time, but have only been introduced as a legitimate therapy option in recent years. LED’s are similar to lasers in that as they can emit the same light but differ in the way that the light energy is delivered.

Lasers are focused-beam single-wavelength light emitters that can be intense enough (a ‘hot’ laser) to burn/cut tissue or ‘cold’ enough to only have light therapy effects. LED’s do not deliver enough power to damage the tissue, but they do deliver enough energy to promote natural self-healing and pain relief. With a low peak power output, the LED’s provide a much gentler delivery of the same healing wavelengths of light, as does the laser but without the same risk of accidental eye damage that lasers do.
 

LED’s are merely convenient devices for producing light at specific wavelengths, and several studies established that it is the light itself at specific wavelengths that is therapeutic in nature. All biological systems have a unique absorption spectrum that determines what wavelengths of radiation will be absorbed to produce a given therapeutic effect.

 

The visible red and invisible infrared portions of the spectrum have been shown to have highly absorbent and unique therapeutic effects in living tissues.

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LED’s also allow the light beam to spread out instead of being a pinpoint light beam. The wide-angle diffusion of the LED confers upon it greater ease of application, since light emissions are thereby able to penetrate a broader surface area, and this results in faster treatment time for a given area than laser.