How Can Electrical Muscle Stimulation Help After A Stroke?
Electrical muscle stimulation gently exercises your muscles . The specially designed muscle stimulators use very small currents flowing between 2 electrodes to move your arm or leg. On the left the hand is waiting to be stimulated and below on the right is the end result.
It's like having physiotherapy at home each day, at your pace and on the areas you want to treat. Physiotherapy is used to exercise muscles after a stroke and improve rehabilitation and recovery.
Electrical muscle stimulation helps your muscles to strengthen and relax and also indirectly stimulates your brain. To read more about muscle stimulators and how they work please click here
The Benefits of Muscle Stimulation
- It gets your muscles (and also you!) moving again. This helps to reduce the stiffness in your muscles.
- It makes you stronger. Muscles that you can't use shrink and become weak, making your rehabilitation more difficult. Stronger muscles are important in you getting going again.
- Over the course of a few weeks you'll notice better movement in your limb often both passive (when someone else moves it) and active (you move it yourself.)
- Your brain is stimulated when your muscles move with information that arrives via your nerves. This information arriving stimulates your brain to bypass the damaged area and improve what you can do.
- You often have less pain from your muscles as they are relaxed and you have fewer muscle spasms.
- Shoulder pain can be reduced with regular use. The muscles round your shoulder are strengthened and your arm droops less, which often reduces your discomfort.
- Better blood flow to your arm or leg improves your skin function and reduces local swelling.
Is Electrical Stimulation A Recognised Treatment That Works?
Yes it is. Electrical muscle stimulation is a proven treatment and is widely used all over the UK and world. Using muscle stimulation is like receiving physiotherapy every day.
Studies have conclusively proved that using a muscle stimulator improves walking ability and foot drop after a Stroke.
For more information on muscle stimulators please click here
The Importance of Brain Stimulation
The aim of all stroke rehabilitation is to indirectly stimulate your brain and encourage it to bypass the damaged areas. The brain is stimulated by the flow of information from your joints and muscles into the brain along your nerves.
After a stroke this information from the affected side stops as no movement = no information. The brain can effectively 'forget' about your affected side until it is 'reminded' by for example gentle stimulation.
Moving and exercising your muscles with electrical stimulation sends information back to your brain and encourages new pathways and better recovery. It really is giving yourself excellent physiotherapy at home.
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