Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Electrotherapy has long been a part of the healing armamentarium. Electrical current can produce thermal, chemical, and physiologic effects in the body. While many uses for the stimulation exist, pain relief is the most common one. The predominant electric modality for pain control is transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). TENS techniques have been against a diverse array of painful states. Just a few of these include arthropathies and arthritis, temporomandibular joint syndrome, dysmenorrhea, and angina pectoris. TENS has also been used for postoperative pain, pediatric procedural pain, dermatologic problems, and a number of other conditions. Typically TENS is employed as an adjunctive therapy. Its contraindications are few and its potential worth to the clinician is inestimable.
The first use of electricity for pain control can be traced back to Socratic times (18:2). The case involved the use of electric fish to treat intractable headache (18:2). Not until a convenient source was available, however, did electricity receive widespread attention as a possible therapeutic tool (18:2). By the mid 1700s though, it was being employed to treat an array of diseases and conditions, including pain (18:2). These various treatments met with different degrees of success. By the early part of this century, interest in electrical stimulation had largely dissipated (18:3).
Then, in 1965, attention was refocused on electricity as a means of pain control (18:3). The catalyst for this reawakening was the introduction of gate control theory by Melzack and Wall (23:4). By the mid 1960s, there was only one American manufacturer still producing an electronic instrument for pain management (18:3). Thus, the Elec-Treat became the original transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulating unit (18:3).
Gate control theory provided a rational basis for electro analgesia (4:5). Melz...