This brief essay is intended to give patients a basic understanding of the principles of microcurrent therapy and microcurrent electro-acupuncture in the often confusing information encountered when investigating this subject. By its very nature, electro-therapy tends to be difficult to understand. Few health professionals have training in electronic theory and parameters, physics or the Universal Laws of energy that clinical success or failure are based on.
Most manufacturers of clinical stimulation devices offer very limited training and instruction, based on simplistic and relatively ineffective techniques of application. I'm sure that the intentions of the people who write electro-therapy training manuals is to keep the information as simple as possible, but the vast majority of the instructions given consist of that are usually way too strong for optimal response.
While this is a simple concept to grasp, simply placing electrodes right over locally painful zones and stimulating these with currents is not what usually leads to superior clinical results. Microcurrent devices are those that output therapeutic currents regulated in the millionth of an amp, or microcurrent, range. The success and popularity of microcurrent electro-therapies are based on frequently superior patient responses. This is due to the fact that most of the human body's innate electrical activity occurs in the pico (trillionths) and nano (billionths) of an amp range, and in some cases reaches the microamp range. Readjustment of these extremely subtle fields is better accomplished with currents that are just slightly higher than the innate currents. The high-intensity milliamp currents output by most electro-therapy devices are truly an 'overkill' response in most clinical cases, although some acute conditions presenting muscle spasm, gross edema and severe pain do require this overkill response for first aid purposes. Even when milliamps are useful, it is advisable to immediately follow with subsensational microcurrents to ease the body down from the distortions induced by the high intensity current intervention. Therefore, a device that offers both milli and microcurrents, in sequence, will be most clinically useful for acute conditions. This would allow for a patient to receive a brief milliamp treatment followed by a longer period of microcurrents.
There are two main mediums to apply microcurrents to the body - through probe electrodes and pad electrodes. Probe electrodes have very small contact points, and so are ideal for stimulation of trigger and acu-points. Quality devices also allow location of acu-points through a probe system using an ohmmeter feedback system. We have found many of the most impressive results with microcurrent therapies to be with specific point stimulation. It is far better to use a microcurrent device that has a well-crafted dual probe system that allows two points to be stimulated at the same time, and allows for accurate searching and location of low-resistance points. As a whole-body treatment system, microcurrent therapy is often advantageously applied to multiple body areas at the same time. Ideally, probe treatment should be simultaneously available as needed. Superior devices have four output channels to allow for this flexibility of treatment. One of the most useful styles of pad treatments is called interferential electro-therapy. This is a four-pad set-up, with each set of two pads set to slightly different frequencies. Interferential currents have the advantage of broader and deeper penetration into the target tissues of the body. A four-channel unit will allow for two of these four-pad set-ups, which is frequently called upon in clinical practice. Some examples would be treatment of both knees, neck and back injuries treated together, or peripheral neuropathy. The Law of Polarity is a universal principle of physics that requires effective energy stimulation to the human body to be in accord with its natural polarization. For disorders of the extremities, acupuncture meridian treatment and balancing, neuropathies and headaches, properly polarized treatment currents are essential.
One of the factors clinicians must deal with in applying any form of stimulation to the body is accommodation. This is the tendency of the body to quickly adapt, and thereby tune out, any repetitive input. This is what happens in a noisy restaurant- you rapidly cease to be as aware of the background noise. If some unusual and new sound reaches your ears, however, you will again sit up and take notice, as it is a departure from the drone you have accommodated to. This new sound that grabs your attention is a form of modulation, or disruption of repetition. This principle is important to understand in the practice of electro-therapies as well. Most microcurrent devices only offer repetitive currents. Once a frequency and intensity is selected, that will continue for the length of the treatment. As just explained, the body is likely to accommodate, thereby rendering most of the treatment ineffective. Best is a device that offers several types of current modulations that helps prevent accommodation. There are several valuable modulation patterns, some better for acute conditions, and some better for sensitive, chronic patients. There are a lot of variables to understand in applying effective microcurrent treatment. The good news is that the microprocessor technology of superior devices allows a clinically effective set of parameters, including correct frequency, polarity, intensity, modulation, waveform, etc., to be selected.
Excerpts reprinted with permission from East-WestSeminars.com
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