Recently published systematic review supports the addition of NMES to standard physical therapy

Recently published systematic review of Hauger et al. (2017) in Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy (“Neuromuscular electrical stimulation is effective in strengthening
the quadriceps muscle after anterior cruciate ligament surgery”) shows a significant improvement of the quadriceps strength and physical function after Anterrior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgery when NeuroMuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) is added to the standard physical therapy.

In this systematic review eleven Randomized Clinical Trial (RCT) studies were included (after the search identified 673 studies in the first place), where the intervention group must have received NMES as an adjunct to standard physical therapy and the control group must have received standard physical therapy without any adjunctive NMES intervention. Nine of these eleven studies found a significant difference in favour of NMES and physical therapy compared to physical therapy alone.

The NMES used in the different RCTs could differ in parameters like frequency, pulse width, duty cycle and treatment time, however nine of the eleven studies used the ‘maximum tolerable’ intensity. The chosen intensity supports the choice for the RSQ1 as device to apply the NMES, because the RSQ1 could apply a very high intensity, caused by the combination of electrical currents which is used. Furthermore the results of this systematic review support the results we did found in our own pilot study.

For the abstract of Hauger et al. (2017) in Pubmed, click here