Friday, April 13, 2007

Electrical Stimulation: The Early Experiments

Electrical Stimulation: The Early Experiments
Alex R Ward and Nataliya Shkuratova
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Electrical stimulation became popular to a large extent as a result of the activities of Kots, who claimed force gains of up to 40% in elite athletes as a result of what was then a new form of stimulation.
He did not provide details of his published work, nor did he give references. electrical stimulation became popular despite the lack of research in the English-language literature. No studies published in English examined whether the "10/50/10" treatment regimen (10 seconds of stimulation followed by 50 seconds rest, repeated for 10 minutes) advocated by Kots is optimal, and only one study addressed whether maximum muscle torque was produced at an alternating current frequency of 2.5 kHz. The few studies that compared low-frequency monophasic pulsed current and electrical stimulation are inconclusive. This article reviews and provides details of the original studies by Kots and co-workers. The authors contend that these studies laid the foundations for the use of forms of electrical stimulation in physical therapy. The authors conclude that there are data in the -language literature that support the use of electrical stimulation but that some questions remain unanswered. [Ward AR, Shkuratova N. electrical stimulation: the early experiments. Phys Ther. 2002;82:1019-1030.]
Key Words: Alternating current, Electrical stimulation, Kilohertz frequencies, Transcutaneous electrical stimulation.

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