The study of folk medicine by anthropologists and medical historians has revealed an astonishing array of ingenious methods to relieve pain (Brockbank, 1954). Every culture, it appears, has learned to fight pain with pain: in general, brief, moderate pain tends to abolish severe, prolonged pain. One of the oldest methods is cupping, in which a glass cup is heated up (by coals or flaming alcohol...

[Purpose] The aim of this double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled study is to investigate the effects of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation for reducing the side effects of Chemotherapy-induced Peripheral Neuropathy in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy with oxaloplatin or paclitaxel. [Subjects and Methods] Twenty-four patients were randomly allocated into two groups: acti...

INTRODUCTION It is estimated that about 80% of the general population occasionally experience spinal pain, with as many as 50% reporting pain in the cervical spine. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of treatment of cervical spine pain with the Saunders traction device and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) by assessing their impact on the cervical spine ra...

OBJECTIVE The authors know of no controlled randomized studies on the cognitive effects of acupuncture following stroke. The aim of this study is to assess the effects of acupuncture combined with electroacupuncture and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation on emotional and cognitive functioning. METHODS Five to 10 days after stroke, 54 patients with moderate or severe functional impair...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In small trials with control groups that receive no intervention, acupuncture has been reported to improve functional outcome after stroke. We studied effects of acupuncture and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation on functional outcome and quality of life after stroke versus a control group that received subliminal electrostimulation. METHODS In a multicenter ra...

The Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator (TENS) is one of the medical devices that uses electricity to stimulate nerve and produce analgesic effects. A TENS device a small battery-powered or city-powered with ends attached sticky pads called electrodes. TENS, its main purpose helping reduce pain muscle spasms, has wide usage area, especially in arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic pelvic pain...

PURPOSE To establish whether it is possible to improve orbicularis oculi muscle function in the eyelids of patients with a chronic seventh cranial nerve palsy by using transcutaneous electrical stimulation to the point at which electrical stimulation induces a functional blink. METHODS Ten subjects (one woman, nine men) aged 36 to 76 with chronic, moderate to severe facial nerve palsy were re...

This article reviews the use of electrotherapy for pain relief. Authors present the basis of the successfull electrotherapy to treat many types of pain. In addition, the article described neurophysiological and neurochemical mechanisms by which non-pharmacological methods like: direct current stimulation (DCS), microcurrent electrical therapy (MET), transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (...