What Are the Therapeutic Effects of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation?

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation treatment primarily involves stimulating afferent sensory nerve fibers and motor nerve fibers. It can promote plastic changes in the brain and achieve reverse activation effects. This type of treatment effectively increases joint activities and has significant therapeutic effects on nerve course activation, muscle disuse therapy, and functional training.

1. Neuromuscular electrical stimulation simultaneously stimulates motor nerve fibers and afferent sensory nerve fibers, both promoting plastic changes in the brain.

2. Electrical stimulation causes reverse activation of motor nerve fibers, leading to coupling activities between presynaptic and postsynaptic membranes.

3. The process of neural network functional recovery is similar to motor learning, and repeated functional movements under electrical stimulation can trigger the reallocation of cortical motor learning areas.

4. Visual feedback information from stimulated movements further enhances motor learning ability.

Normal muscle electrical stimulation therapy is clinically mainly used to prevent and treat disuse muscle atrophy, increase or maintain joint range of motion, and perform functional training and exercise for denervated muscles to enhance normal muscle strength. For example, stimulating respiratory muscles, quadriceps of the lower limbs, and tibialis anterior muscle groups can increase respiratory muscle and quadriceps strength, promoting lung rehabilitation. It is also used to treat spastic muscles and correct deformities such as scoliosis, flat feet, and shoulder joint dislocation.

Denervated muscle electrical stimulation therapy is primarily applied to muscle paralysis and atrophy caused by lower motor neuron damage, such as facial nerve palsy, ulnar nerve, radial nerve, median nerve injury, lower limb weakness caused by sciatic nerve damage, tibial nerve, and peroneal nerve palsy, etc.