Interferential Stimulation vs. Other Types of Electrotherapy
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Electrical stimulation devices can essentially offer direct alternating electrical currents or impulse forms of energy. These electric devices are commonly used to work out muscles by stimulation. Muscle tissues are stimulated when electrodes are placed on the skin of an affected patient. These electrodes give out the electrical currents or impulses inciting injured or disordered tissues.
Apart from exercising muscle tissues, electrical stimulators are also extensively used by many physiotherapists to relieve pain, stimulate selected nerve fibers, initiating muscles to contract, provide medical assessment or measurements, and reduce incontinence among patients. Specifically, electrodes used in these different electrotherapy devices may be indwelling, implanted, surface, or transcutaneous (needles).
Moreover, electrical stimulators would have various set of controls to manage or adjust the electrical current repetition frequency, electrical current length, pulse amplitude, and triggering modes. These electrotherapy devices may come as entirely electrically-remote or battery-operated.
Interferential stimulation against other devices
Interferential stimulation (IFS) is a type of stimulation device that is characterized by the intersecting of two electrical medium, wherein individual frequencies work together to efficiently incite large pulse nerve fibers. Frequencies evidently obstruct or hold up pain messages transmitted from injured tissues straight to the patient’s brain (spinal cord level). In addition, the depth of tissue penetration can be controlled or adjusted to fire up the parasympathetic nerve fibers for an increased blood circulation.
What makes Interferential stimulation therapy clearly distinct from TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation) is the capability of IFS to penetrate deeper into the tissues with further accordance or comfort. Basically, IFS is able to permeate greater depths and covering more significant volume of tissue compared to any other types of electrotherapy.
Another advantage of IFS is its capacity to increase blood flow. Also, IFS can intersect the skin easier and with reduced stimulations of cutaneous nerves (nerve sensation) enabling greater comfort all throughout the treatment period.
Furthermore, IFS uses medium-frequency currents unlike that of Microcurrent (MC), which rather uses low frequency. Since the skin can tolerate better medium-frequency pulses, the dosage or intensity of current can therefore be increases. In this process, IFS’s ability to infuse tissues and enabling easier way into deeper structures is improved.
This then sufficiently clarifies why IFS is perceived as most appropriate and effective treatment for patients long struggling with deep pain. IFS may promote osteogenesis in pseudothrosis as well as in nonunion and deferred fractures. Also, IFS may also be best for inciting deep skeletal muscles to boost muscle pump mechanism and for decreasing the activities of certain lumbosacral and cervical sympathetic ganglia among patients with high arterial constrictor tone.
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