The road to rehabilitation can be lengthy and winding at times. Patients are anxious to get back to their usual lifestyles and favorite hobbies once they begin to feel better. Chiropractors play a crucial role in guiding patients through this process. They use a variety of therapeutic strategies to help patients achieve their rehabilitation goals as quickly as feasible. Electrical muscle stimulation is one of these approaches.
Let's learn more about EMS, including its benefits, how it works, and the conditions it can help with.
What is electrical muscle stimulation?
EMS is a focused rehabilitation treatment that can be combined with manual therapy and other rehabilitation activities and therapies. It aids healing by stimulating certain muscles, preventing atrophy, and increasing strength. Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) can be used to treat pain and regain muscle strength after an injury, surgery, or spasm.
How does it work?
EMS works by delivering moderate electrical pulses to the targeted muscle region to maintain or recover muscle strength. Chiropractors use electrodes to induce muscular contractions on the patient's skin. The electrical impulses are designed to mimic brain messages and the body's natural response.
Electrical
stimulation relieves pain by stimulating specific nerves. Chiropractors employ electrodes to direct electrical pulses to specific regions of the nervous system in order to inhibit pain signals from reaching the spine and brain. Endorphins, which are natural pain relievers, increase due to the stimulation.
The advantages of electrical muscle stimulation:
The advantages of EMS can benefit a wide range of individuals with various ailments.
Physiotherapy:
Physiotherapy patients can use EMS to help reawaken muscle responsiveness while recovering from surgery or an accident. Electrical stimulation, for example, has been demonstrated to strengthen quadriceps following ACL reconstruction surgery. Electrical muscle stimulation can be used in a
physiotherapy program with specific exercises. EMS can improve engagement in therapeutic activities while also addressing flaws.
Rehabilitation:
EMS also helps patients recover from major injuries increase their mobility and strength. It can be used in rehabilitation and occupational therapy program. The stimulation helps retrain muscles to adapt to the body's natural impulses and increase strength. When patients are striving to re-learn basic motor tasks, this is helpful.
Long-term care: This sort of electrical stimulation allows patients who have had a spinal cord injury or paralysis to keep their muscles engaged. Electrical stimulation helps critically ill patients exercise and preserve muscular tone that would otherwise deteriorate due to lack of activity.
Pain management:
Electrical stimulation can also help patients who are suffering from chronic pain. This sort of therapy
uses a different wavelength to target the body's nerves. This drug-free therapy can provide relief by suppressing the function of pain receptors that send signals of discomfort to the brain.
Athletic training:
Electrical muscle stimulation helps elite athletes achieve a competitive advantage. It has been used to help athletes improve strength, boost performance, and promote muscular reaction in a range of sports. Types of EMS
When working with patients, rehabilitation doctors and physiotherapists employ several methods of
electrical muscle stimulation.
NMES:
Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) is a type of physiotherapy that helps people recover faster after an injury or surgery. This type of EMS aids in the recovery of muscular responsiveness and
strength. The goal is to return to normal function and activities in a shorter amount of time. NMES can also be utilized to improve sports and strength training programs by enhancing muscle conditioning.
Russian Stimulation:
Similarly, electrical stimulation improves muscle contraction and strengthens weak muscles.
TENS:
TENS stands for transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and it is a sort of therapy used to treat both acute and chronic pain. TENS works by interrupting the pain signals that wounded tissues send through the body's nerves.
IFC:
Electrical stimulation with interferential current (IFC) is a type of stimulation used to reduce pain and improve circulation to wounded tissues in the body.
High voltage stimulation:
Chiropractors can use EMS with a high voltage to help wounds heal faster.
Iontophoresis:
Electrical stimulation can also be used to deliver medications through the skin. It is used to reduce inflammation, reduce swelling in a specific location, regulate scar tissue growth, and relax spasming muscles.
What patients should expect with EMS?
You might be hesitant to use EMS as part of your physiotherapy program. However, we can promise you that it sounds far more unpleasant than it is. Therapy usually lasts between 9 and 15 minutes. During therapy, you may most likely feel a tingling sensation and experience a recurrent tensing in the muscle. EMS should never be a painful experience. The chiropractor will place little electrodes on your skin during your appointment. The sticky electrode pads are placed all over the area that will be stimulated. The pads are connected to the EMS device, which provides the appropriate electrical current through wires.
Muscle Therapy:
During this period, the therapist will control the electrical current's intensity. This usually entails starting with a low amount of stimulation and progressively increasing it. As a result, the targeted muscles will contract more forcefully. While the pulses are being given, your therapist may instruct you to do a specific gesture.
Nerve Therapy:
The patient is urged to relax during the EMS therapy session to ease pain or muscular spasms.
When EMS is not recommended?
Patients with pacemakers, implanted heart devices, some forms of skin sensitivity and disease, and pregnant women should avoid EMS.
Visit Sheets Chiropractic to get assistance on EMS.
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