High-tone External Muscle Stimulation for Pain Reduction

West German Center of Diabetes and Health100 enrolled

Overview

Sciatica is a common pain problem that affects not only the patient but also constitutes a socioeconomic burden and thus affects the whole society. So far, current pharmacologic therapies are inadequate for many patients. Therefore, we evaluated application of high-tone external muscle stimulation (HTEMS) compared to transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on radicular pain associated with sciatica.

Hospital patients (n=100) with chronic sciatica and stable oral analgesic regimen were included into this randomized controlled cross-over trial. Each intervention was administered for a period of 45 min 5 times within 10 days, with a 3-day wash-out period before cross-over. Health impairments had been assessed using the visual analog scales (VAS) for radicular pain before and after intervention and differences in radicular pain between groups were analysed with the Mann-Whitney test.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

100

Conditions

Chronic Radicular Back Pain Lumboischialgia Cervico Brachialgia

Interventions

HTEMSDEVICE

TENSDEVICE

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 99 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * sciatica due to degenerative spine disorders * stable oral analgesic regimen Exclusion Criteria: * history of drug or alcohol abuse * cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator * pregnancy

Locations (2)

St. Vinzenz Krankenhaus

Düsseldorf, Germany

Düsseldorf Catholic Hospital Group

Düsseldorf, Germany

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Back pain

Back pain measured by an 11-point visual analogue scale (VAS) with 0 = none and 10 = worst pain imaginable

Time frame: 10 days

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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