In our acupuncture discussion last week, I had briefly mentioned about “electroacupuncture”. It was my first time hearing this term so I looked up for more detailed information on this subject…if anyone’s interested in it as well!
We all have a general idea of how traditional acupuncture works…
Electroacupuncture stem from the same idea of using needles on the acupoints but with the needles attached to a device that generates continuous electric stimulation. Another term for electroacupunture is “Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulations (PENS)”
There are three main benefits of using electroacupunture:
1. It substitutes for prolonged hand manoeuvring. It helps to assure that the patient gets the amount of stimulation needed in case of the acupunturist’s pause due to fatigue. It also helps to reduce the total treatment time by providing continuous stimulus as well as the chances for the acupuncturist to attend other patients.
2. It can provide a stronger stimulation without causing tissue damage. Strong stimulation may be necessary in difficult cases such as neuralgia or paralysis.
3. Electroacupunture makes it easier to control the frequency and the amount of stimulus in comparison with hand manipulation of the needles.
There is one disadvantage of electroacupunture --- the lack of direct acupuncturist participation. It limits the opportunity for the acpunturist to respond to changes that are taking place during treatment.
According to the Chinese literature, good results are expected from electroacupunture especially in treatment of neurological diseases, including chronic pain, spasm, and paralysis. However, the method should be used with caution in patients with serious cardiac disease. It’s generally recommended to avoid placing electrodes near the heart to prevent the adverse responses of the heart to electrical impulses. In addition, the path between any two electrodes should not cross the heart area as well. Some have also suggested avoiding placing electrodes to needles on both sides of the spinal cord no matter how low the current that’s being used, because of the possible effect of the electrical stimulus on the nervous system.
Similar to the traditional acupuncture treatments, the electroacupunture treatment experiments also revealed conflicting outcomes. The majority of journal articles from China on electroacupunture are devoted to laboratory animal studies. Those studies have limited relevance to humans due to the difficulties matching points on these animals with those on humans. Therefore, electroacupunture animal studies mainly provide a means of using an animal model to study acupuncture therapy in general.
This following short video provides the basic idea as well as demonstratio of both traditional and electroacupuncture!
Here is the link if the short video does not show on your computer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvlxggeIG4E&feature=related
References
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/electro.htm Electro-acupuncture Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D, Director, Institute for Tranditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroacupuncture Electro acupuncture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvlxggeIG4E&feature=related Acupuncture treatment - the basics. Tom Kennedy
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OK, I have a strong, probably very unscientific opinion in the matter of electro versus traditional acupuncture. The pros that you mentioned and were highlighted in the resource from the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine such as sustained and consistent stimulation also are the cons. No one knows exactly how and why acupuncture works. We discussed possible mechanisms such as the release of endorphins and stimulation of release of certain cytokines. All these theories seem a bit weak. Although they may contribute, there is probably a lot more going on. The practitioner's ability to read the pulses and monitor the patient's reaction is essential in the overall success of the treatment. Decreased vigilance by the practitioner and the fluctuations in pressure, depth, etc inherent in the human application are pivotal to the specialization and individuation of the treatment.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying that Electro-acupuncture is ineffective. The electric stimulation of the acupuncture points may provide relief much like TENS treatment, transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation. TENS confuses the sensory nerve signals with electrical stimulation decreasing perception of pain. The therapy is now widely used and even applied with some success in child birth. Some studies have found the electro- acupuncture to be more effective than the TENS. Regardless, traditional acupuncture developed over thousands of years probably functions on many different physiological and unqualified mechanisms. Benefits from basic stress relief to sensational recoveries are commonly recorded. Personally I appreciate dynamic and mysterious relationship provided by more traditional applications.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161233.php
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/electro.htm
1.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2946016