Yuki Nishi and his colleagues from the Kio University Neurorehabilitation Research Center and Nagasaki University revealed that abnormal sensations and upper limb activity improved in one case of transverse myelitis after receiving numbness-synchronized transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS).
Myelitis is a rare inflammatory neurological disorder with an incidence of 3 cases per 10 people, and pain and abnormal sensations caused by myelitis are known to be resistant to treatment. The effectiveness of rehabilitation for neuropathic pain and abnormal sensations caused by myelitis has not been fully verified because it is a rare disease, so the accumulation of case reports is clinically significant. The research group has previously developed a numbness-tuned transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) that delivers electrical stimulation with parameters that match the numbness sensation, and has reported its effectiveness.
In this study, the research group performed numbness-synchronized TENS on one case of transverse myelitis in which numbness and allodynia (pain from even touch) hindered ADLs (activities of daily living). As a result, numbness, allodynia, and upper limb activity improved immediately. In addition, a long-term effect was observed for numbness, but not for allodynia. A sustained effect was observed for upper limb activity and upper limb ADLs, indicating that numbness-synchronized TENS may contribute to the improvement of not only numbness and allodynia, but also ADLs.
Numbness-synchronized TENS may be effective even for abnormal sensations that are highly resistant to medication, and may become a new treatment option. In the future, we plan to verify not only its effectiveness on numbness and allodynia in other diseases, but also its ripple effect on ADL, etc.
