Influência da Eletroestimulação Nervosa Transcutânea (TENS) aplicada nas mãos de amputados de membros inferiores com dor fantasma e dor no coto

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Amputation is the recession of part of body by surgery or trauma. Phantom limb sensation could occurs as soon as the amputation is done and it can persists for years, like phantom limb pain. While phantom limb pain is a generic expression of pain on part of body does not exists anymore, the stump pain has specific location, normally associated to a inflammatory process due to a surgery or trauma. A feature often used in the treatment of pain in physiotherapy is the Transcutaneous Electrical Stimulation (TENS). OBJECTIVE: This research aims to demonstrate the effect of TENS applied on hands of lower-limb amputees on theirs phantom pain or stump pain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The clinical research was performed in 20 patients. They were evaluated about their phantom limb pain and stump pain through the Visual Analogue Scale and the Fisher Algometer, respectively. They were submitted to 6 sessions of TENS (F:10Hz and T: 100μs) on their hands. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 20.0 for Windows. RESULTS: we observed a reduction in the intensity of phantom pain in 67.5% on a Visual Analogue Scale and an improvement of 40% as pain sensitivity with respect to the Fisher Algometer. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that low frequency TENS reduced the stump pain and phantom limb pain of lower-limb amputees.