New Functional Electrical Stimulation Technique Proves Its Superiority

New Functional Electrical Stimulation Technique Proves Its Superiority

Patients with spinal cord injuries and lost functions of the upper or lower extremities have benefited for quite a while from functional electrical stimulation (FES), but this traditional treatment option usually leads to painful adverse effects. Electrical currents are used in order to stimulate the patient’s nerves and besides the beneficial effects, the electric currents can also send aberrant signals to adjacent nerves, usually resulting in pain.

A team of plastic surgeons from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center described a new method that can be used for nerve stimulation, that uses only 60% of the electrical threshold of traditional medical equipment used for functional electrical stimulation therapy today. These results represent one step forward in developing more efficient treatment options with less side effects for patients suffering from spinal cord injuries.

Functional Electrical Stimulation

The new device actually manipulates the concentration of ions that are usually surrounding a nerve according to, Samuel J. Lin, MD , co-senior author. The less electrical current used for stimulating nerves means a lower risk for the nerves in the vicinity and therefore less side effects like pain. Further more, the researchers also discovered that they can also use this method to block the transmission of signals to the nearby muscles, making them able to prevent muscle spasms.

Lin and Associate Professor Jongyoon Han, PhD concluded that they can adjust the electric impulses by modifying the calcium concentration found in the fluid that surrounds nerves.

Nerves are stimulated to send electric impulses by the different ions interactions such as calcium, sodium and potassium explains coauthor Ahmed M.S Ibrahim. The scientists wanted to achieve nerve stimulation with the lowest  intensity current possible so they tried to remove at a time, sodium, potassium and calcium ions from the fluid that normally surrounds nerves. The best result were achieved after the removal of positive calcium ions.

This new approach uses less electrical current than traditional functional electrical stimulation therapy and also prevents the electrical impulses from stimulating adjacent nerves. Traditional functional electric stimulation was known to have its limits because anatomically speaking, the nerves responsible for carrying pain signals are arranged in a very tight formation.

By combining biomedical professionals and engineers the research team managed to develop a revolutionary technique with encouraging results. The technique was demonstrated using frog nerves; mammal testing would be the next rational step.