Electrical Stimulation

What is your daily routine?

For most of us moving and using our limbs is a part of our everyday routine. When we wake in the morning and get up we walk to the bathroom, use the facilities, wash ourselves and brush our teeth. This helps us to get ready, physically and mentally, for the day ahead. This may also involve helping get family members ready for school or work; preparing breakfast and lunches. Then, perhaps, we focus on our own tasks for the day, such as going to work or school, walking the dog, shopping, housework, meeting up with friends, pastimes, and general chores both in and out of the home. We use our legs and arms for practically everything we do; for gross motor movements such as walking, bending, twisting, lifting, and stretching for that top shelf, and also for fine motor movements such as turning a door knob, feeding ourselves, writing or using a phone/tablet.

Now imagine attempting this daily routine routine with limited fine or gross motor movements. For people with neurological conditions fine or gross motor movement issues are as a result of a variety of factors, such as, muscle weakness, poor balance, numbness, dropped foot, fatigue or spasticity. It is recognised that regular exercise of such fundamental movements can improve the symptoms, however these improvements may not be maintained if exercise is not continuous.

What role can electrical stimulation play?

Electrical stimulation can be used to strengthen weakened muscles, improve sensory awareness, decrease spasticity, improve range of movement, decrease pain, and improve function.

The earliest known use of electric muscle stimulation was by the Egyptians over 2000 years ago. They discovered that certain fish emit an electric impulse, and they used this electric stimulation to treat pain or gout. In 1745, Altus Kratzstein, a German physician, wrote the first book on electrical therapy. In the 18^th century Italy’s Luigi Galvani experimented with passing of an electrical current through the spine of a frog, thus showing that electric current facilitated the contraction of the frog’s muscles. In 1965, Malzack and Wall published a paper reporting the benefits of the electrical current as therapy for people showing certain symptoms. In 1976, Dr Yahov Kots showed that an electric current (Russian stim) was effective in building muscle mass and increasing fast twitch responses for speed. More and published studies followed in these footsteps which have reported the various benefits of electrical stimulation as a treatment.

Today electrical stimulation is used widely, such as, TENS devices to aid with pain management, NMES devices that can target specific muscles or nerves to aid muscle strengthening and recovery, and FES devices that again activate specific muscles and nerves but do so in order to carry out a specific function.