• Pain Med · May 2007

    Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study

    Effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and interferential current in primary dysmenorrhea.

    • Nazan Tugay, Türkan Akbayrak, Funda Demirtürk, Ilkim Citak Karakaya, Ozge Kocaacar, Umut Tugay, Mehmet Gürhan Karakaya, and Fazli Demirtürk.
    • Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, Muğla School of Health Sciences, Muğla University, Muğla, Turkey.
    • Pain Med. 2007 May 1;8(4):295-300.

    ObjectiveTo compare the effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and interferential current in primary dysmenorrhea.DesignA prospective, randomized, and controlled study.SettingHacettepe University School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation.PatientsThirty-four volunteer subjects with primary dysmenorrhea (mean age: 21.35 +/- 1.70 years) were included. Statistical analyses were performed in 32 subjects who completed all measures.InterventionsFifteen subjects received interferential current application for 20 minutes and 17 subjects received transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation for 20 minutes when they were experiencing dysmenorrhea.Outcome MeasuresPhysical characteristics, years since menarche, length of menstrual cycle (days), and duration of menstruation (days) were recorded. Visual analog scale ( VAS) intensities of menstrual pain, referred lower limb pain, and low back pain were recorded before treatment, and immediately, 8 hours, and 24 hours after treatment.ResultsIntensities of the evaluated parameters decreased beginning from just after the applications in both groups (P<0.05). Intensity of referring low back pain in first three measurement times was different between the groups (P<0.05), but this difference is thought to be due to the baseline values of the groups. So, it can be said that no superiority existed between the methods (P>0.05).ConclusionBoth transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and interferential current appear to be effective in primary dysmenorrhea. As they are free from the potentially adverse effects of analgesics, and no adverse effects are reported in the literature nor observed in this study, a clinical trial of their effectiveness in comparison with untreated and placebo-treated control groups is warranted.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…