Clinical Effect of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) on Wrist Pain in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

The effect of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on wrist joint pain was studied in 12 patients, 3 men and 9 women, with rheumatoid arthritis. The patients ages ranged between 32 and 72 years, and rheumatoid arthritis had been diagnosed from 3 to 38 years previously. The pain threshold due to electrical stimulation was also measured. Electrical stimulation was done for 15 minutes through an electrode on the wrist joint with using a constant current stimulator with a frequency of 50 or 250 Hz. The pain threshold in daily use, grasping power and ROM were measured before and after TENS and increased on an average of 2.5 mA (P<0.01) . These pain threshold results correlate well with those of the CRP test (r=-0.5, P0.05) . Thus it seems to be possible to assess the pain in patients using this method. The change of grasping power after TENS was observed to increase with 14 joints and decrease with 2 joints. It did not change in 4 patients. The increase in power with all 20 joints was, on the average, 11.9 mmHg (P<0.01) . ROM improved in 4 joints of 2 patients. From these results, TENS is considered to be a useful from of physical therapy for RA wrists.