Electrical stimulators for pain syndromes
Chronic pain syndromes (lasting more than 6 months) significantly impair the patient’s quality of life, leading to social maladjustment and further disability of the person.
For the treatment of chronic pain syndromes of various nature, electrical stimulation of various parts of the central and peripheral nervous system can be successfully used . Electrical stimulators are implanted into various structures of the brain and spinal cord, peripheral nerves and nerve plexuses.
Technical side
From a technical point of view, an electrical stimulator is a device for generating the necessary pulses with programmable parameters, which are supplied to the target area of the patient’s body using special electrodes, thus closing a “live” therapeutic electrical circuit.
Modern radioelectronic and biomedical technologies allow not only to minimize these devices, but also to ensure safe neurosurgical implantation (“implantation”) of them into the patient’s body (as a rule, under the skin in soft tissues) with subsequent remote control of stimulation modes, which can be carried out by the patient himself using a special remote control. The energy reserve in modern implanted neuromodulation devices is enough for several years of continuous operation.
Advantages of use
In addition to successfully combating pain, electrical stimulation of nerve structures is able to:
- normalize pathologically altered muscle tone in spasticity (examples include diseases such as Parkinsonism or cerebral palsy),
- great effectiveness in hyperkinesis (rough involuntary movements that are characteristic of chorea, hemiballismus),
- Long-term electroneurostimulation, the application point of which is the roots of the sacral plexus, allows you to normalize impaired functions of the pelvic organs (neurogenic or overactive bladder, fecal incontinence) in patients of neurosurgical, urological and proctological profiles.
Conclusion
Thus, electroneurostimulation, being a high-tech, physiological and minimally invasive technique, significantly improves the quality of life of patients with the above diseases, giving them a real opportunity to return to a full-fledged active life, social and labor adaptation.
