Brief History and Definitions
Electrical stimulation is simply the application of electrical pulses to the body, be it for function or therapy. The classical example is that of the cardiac pacemaker. The range of clinical uses of electrical stimulation is wide and includes:
- pain relief (often known as TENS - Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation)
- maintaining or increasing range of movement
- muscle strengthening
- facilitation of voluntary motor function
- orthotic training or substitution
Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is a subset of electrical stimulation. The term FES is applied to systems which attempt to restore lost or impaired neuromuscular function, such as standing and walking in cases of paraplegia, by the application of electrical pulses to neural pathways or, but less often, directly to muscles. FES is also sometimes known as Functional Neuromuscular Stimulation or FNS.
A portable stand-sit closed-loop electrical orthosis in use
(c) David Ewins 1990
It is important to realise that there are very few FES orthoses that could be considered to be clinically widely available, and that even those that are used on a daily basis require a good deal of input from clinicians, therapists and bioengineers, together with a considerable amount of commitment from the end user.
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Amanda Lamb and David Ewins
October1995