The Effect of body vibration on the physical function of humans

Abstract

A lot of people has contact with vibration beginning from household appliances to medical interventions and those vibrations effects our bodies. This review aim is to figure out how much is known about vibration different parameters on human body. Humans starts to feel vibration from 10 Hz and it is proven that 180 Hz vibration starts to destroy neurons. Most tools work in 50-200 Hz range and does no significant harm. Most controlled studies are done on whole body vibration (WBV) which gives as parameters in range of 15-50 Hz, 1-6 mm amplitudes. But not all studies agree on benefit and harm ratio of this procedure. Some studies testing healthy or osteoporotic elderly women state that this exercise increases bone mass and coordination, other works state creating weak spots on skeleton. WBV can relieve chronic obstructive pulmonary disease symptoms or neuropathies caused by diabetes mellitus or other neurodegenerative diseases. There are few studies that look into effects on adjacent tissues apart those that are affected directly - making burr holes in skull causes sensorineural hearing loss. Differences in the hearing thresholds at higher frequencies (4-6 kHz) were significant before and after craniotomy. Using an ultrasonic bone curette that produces 500 - 8,000 Hz skull vibration levels can be safely applied without the risk of harmful effects on the inner ear. But they do not test sensorineural hearing thresholds on different frequencies which leads to more questions than answers. Concluding, there are a lot of research done on WBV, but there are little known about selective body parts vibration effects with different parameters. Also there are practically none research on vibration effects to different tissues and mechanism that brings all in these studies seen outcomes.