Patrick De Bock, PT, Antwerp, Belgium
For: Pain
I started to use portable TENS units in physical therapy about 12 years ago. I had the feeling that this was the best possible solution to do something about pain. But still too many patients kept complaining about pain and the additional use of drugs was often the only way out. On the other hand I realized that this way of treating pain is still only a symptomatic treatment. In April 1998, I started using the Alpha-Stim® 100. From the very beginning, I noticed that this microcurrent device offers much more and better possibilities than any TENS device.
I use the Alpha-Stim® in a variety of pathologies, as they are common in physical therapy, i.e. tendonitis, periostitis, traumatic ankle distortions, facet joint and intervertebral disc pain, etc. I had the opportunity to compare the Alpha-Stim® to two other microcurrent devices and it is remarkable that there is still quite a difference. The Alpha-Stim® shows its effects in less treatments and has a greater effect of decreasing the pain, i.e., the treatment of tendonitis of the supraspinatus muscle is sometimes only a matter of two treatments in three or four days. Of course this is in combination with manual therapy techniques but one of the remarkable effects is that further no drugs, such as NSAID’s, are being used. This leads to the conclusion that the Alpha-Stim® microcurrent probably has its effects much closer to the cause of the injury or disease, which is a welcome alternative to the variety of symptomatic treatments in physical therapy. I think that according to the need for evidence based physical therapy the Alpha-Stim® technology is what PT’s are waiting for.
The Alpha-Stim® offers even more. The CES option is in physical therapy a welcome solution for the treatment of pathologies that include an overactivated sympathetic nervous system, such as in RSD and whiplash. CES was completely new to me and in this matter I want to thank you for lecturing here at the university in May last year. Your explanations on CES have been of great value to me and together with your book it helped me write the CES chapter in my book on electrotherapy.
