Electrotherapy - Neural Stimulation:
Electrotherapy.
This is a category of modality use that uses complex machinery to pass energy into the patient, affecting the way the tissues work and heal on a cellular level. The two categories are Cellular Excitation, and Neural Stimulation.
The principal forms of neural stimulation are Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), NeuroMuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES), and InterFerential Therapy (IFT). Basically these three therapies pass electrical energy through your body between self-adhesive electrodes (don’t worry, very little energy). This energy stimulates the nerves locally to “fire”, and carry their normal message to where they would normally take it. Different frequencies of electrical energy, and different patterns of energy “pulse” cause different nerve types to fire. TENS causes Type Aβ & Aδ sensory nerves to fire, which alters your perception of pain, by overloading the sensory pathways. NMES causes motor nerves to fire, causing a small muscular twitch, reduce swelling, and increase blood flow, helping the healing process; and also increasing the strength of a withered muscle; helping to stabilise an area. IFT is a current that can mimic both TENS and NMES, but is at a much higher frequency, allowing it to pass through the skin much more effectively, improving patient comfort significantly.
Possible side-effects include electrical burn, but only if the electrodes are towards end of useable life or peel part way off.