Electro stim therapy, also known as electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) or neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), is a non-invasive treatment that uses electrical impulses to contract and relax muscles. The therapy is used to relieve pain, improve muscle strength and endurance, and promote healing in conditions such as muscle strains, sprains, and injuries. It can also be used to improve athletic performance and as a form of physical therapy or as an adjunct to other types of therapy. The therapy works by delivering electrical impulses to the muscles through electrodes placed on the skin near the affected muscle or muscle group. These impulses cause the muscle to contract and relax, which can help to relieve pain, improve muscle strength and endurance, and promote healing. The intensity of the impulses can be adjusted to suit the individual needs of the patient, and the therapy can be used to target specific muscle groups or to stimulate the entire body.
EMS therapy has been used for centuries, with the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all using forms of electrical therapy to treat a variety of ailments. However, it wasn’t until the late 19th century that EMS began to be used for muscle stimulation. In the 1920s and 1930s, a Russian physiologist named Dr. Vladimir Marek began using EMS to treat muscle weakness and paralysis. By the 1950s, EMS had become a popular treatment in Europe and the United States for a variety of conditions, including muscle pain and weakness, spinal cord injuries, and paralysis.
The therapy is used to treat a variety of conditions including muscle pain and weakness, spinal cord injuries, and paralysis. It is also used to improve athletic performance, and may be used as a form of physical therapy or as an adjunct to other types of therapy. It has been used to help people with a number of conditions such as chronic pain, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and muscle spasms.
EMS therapy is also used to improve muscle strength and endurance in people who have conditions that cause muscle weakness, such as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, and certain types of muscular dystrophy. It is also used to help people with certain types of paralysis, such as spinal cord injuries and stroke, to regain muscle function.
The therapy is highly versatile, with a wide range of different protocols and settings available to suit the individual needs of each patient. This flexibility allows for personalized treatment plans that can be tailored to the specific needs and goals of each individual.
Another major benefit of electro stim therapy is its safety profile. The therapy is non-invasive and has very few side effects, with the most common being mild skin irritation and muscle soreness. These side effects are typically temporary and go away shortly after the therapy is discontinued It is important to note that people with certain medical conditions, such as heart problems, pacemakers, or metal implants, should not use electro stim therapy without consulting with their doctor. Also, people who are pregnant or have had recent surgery should not use electro stim therapy.
Electronic Pulses
As the name suggests, these modern fitness devices are worn around the waist, positioned right around the abs and then using what is known as electronic muscle stimulation. EMS tries to stimulate the expansion and contraction of muscles during a physical exercise or workout by transmitting electric pulses through the nerves. Nerve endings usually initiate the contraction via electric pulses running through the muscle fibers.
Safe And Effective
This technology employed by ab belts allows the user to simply set the intensity and the duration that the electronic pulses will course through his or her abs, bypassing the need to work out or perform strenuous physical exercises to get rid of excess fat or to tone the abs. Are these electronic waves safe for the body, however? The answer is yes, as the levels of these pulses that are transmitted from the ab belt to the gel or rubber pads around the abdomen are within safe amounts, so there is no danger of getting electrocuted or causing injury to your abdominal muscles by excessive stimulation.
The great thing about ab belts is how easy they are to use. Most are battery-operated and rechargeable, and are also quite easy to assemble. There is no need for the user to learn complicated processes or read a thick guidebook or manual before he or she can use the device. Also, since these ab belts are worn around the abdomen, the user is also free to do other things while in the middle of a muscle stimulation session. Simple household chores such as cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry or doing homework with the kids can still be accomplished even while using an ab belt. Of course, if you prefer to lay around, read a book, watch a movie or TV show, or just listen to music while using your ab belt, you can do that also.
How To Help The Stroke Patient Using Portable Muscle Stimulators and Functional Stimulators
The purpose of muscle stimulation in most instances is to help a patient relearn how to move muscles to restore function, such as the simple process of picking up a cup of coffee. The correct term for this type of function restoration is to use a “Functional Electrical Stimulator” or F.E.S. unit. Most FES units are prescribed by a physician to be used following a stroke, or in some situations an injury that resulted in partial denervation, some nerves destroyed or damaged but not all and some have remained intact.
When there are surviving, intact nerves then our body, through a process known as “muscle reeducation”, learns how to use the surviving nerves to accomplish tasks that formerly were easy to do. The brain, with the use of the FES unit, is taught how to use the nerves to be able to pick up and drink a cup of coffee for an example. The stimulator actually stimulates the nerves which in turn is also teaching the brain what impulses to send to the surviving nerves so the task can be accomplished. With proper instruction and setting of the muscle stimulator controls the patient can accomplish the tasks and the repetition increases the rehabilitation outcome.
Most “muscle stimulation” is for the purpose of reducing swelling or in the case of a casted patient, to retard some of the disuse atrophy. The stimulation of muscle nerves for the edematous patient causes the muscles to “pump” and that action restricts the area of the swelling and the fluid is physically pumped out of the area quicker than the normal process would be.
What are EMG tests used for?
Doctors use EMG to diagnose medical conditions that are directly associated with muscles, such as muscular dystrophy and Myasthenia Gravis. EMG is also used, in the clinic, for the identification of nerve disorders such as paralysis, involuntary twitching or weakness within a muscle. While doctors use EMG research to differentiate between a neurological disorder or a muscle disease physiologists used it for an entirely different reason.
Physiologists use EMG research and the results to find out which exercises cause the most amount of electrical stimulation within a certain muscle. The higher the stimulation, the more muscle fibers are recruited therefore resulting in a gain in muscle size and strength.
Why have an EMG test?
Sometimes people who have a hip replacement or knee surgery and after being on crutches or a cast for so long their leg gets smaller due to reversibility. The patient then starts to train again and although the leg has regained its size it still looks really small and feels relatively weak. Doctors will do an EMG tests and see how much electrical activity is going on, if there is not much activity then the client may need to be referred to a specialist. If the test comes back as fine then the client just needs to be doing more exercise to strengthen it back up by doing additional exercises on the affected muscles.
What does the test involve?
Before having an EMG test conducted on you the doctor requests that twenty four hours prior the patient doesn’t consume alcohol, smoke and caffeine because all of these substances affect the amount of electrical activity taking place within the muscles. For instance, Caffeine and smoke speed up signals while Alcohol has the opposite effect.
The EMG test involves the patient coming into surgery and lying down on a bed a relaxing. The doctor will then place a small flat disc (approx 4cm wide) is placed close to the muscle being tested. Then a small needle (with an electrode on the tip) is inserted through the skin and into the muscle being tested. The needles used a smaller than a normal syringe but the patient will experience some discomfort on insertion. On the top of the needle is a small wire that carries the signal from the needle into the monitor (Oscilloscope) and then the monitor displays how much electrical activity is going on by a line graph that looks similar to a life support but more sporadic. The doctor may ask for the patient to contract and relax the muscle in order to get a really good electrical stimulation.
What do the results mean?
If, while looking at the monitor, there is a lot of movement and the line graph is going up and down like a mad thing, this means that there is a lot of stimulation happening inside that muscle. On the other hand if there is not to much activity while contracting and relaxing the muscle then this means you have a negative result.
If found negative the doctor will have to refer the patient to a specialist who could correctly identify exactly what is the problem.
What are the Risks?
The only risk associated with EMG testing is an infection at the needle insertion points or a sore muscle for the next couple of days. Even so, these risks are so unlikely to happen because the test is conducted in a hospital environment where everything is sterile and cleaned afterwards. If patients are nervous about the muscle soreness the day afterwards, doctors advise to ice the muscle when getting home to reduce any swelling that may have occurred from the needle insertion.