• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.2617-2624
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• 2012

Interferential currents (IFC) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) are used for pain management. This study compared the analgesic effects of IFC and TENS on experimentally induced ischemic pain in otherwise pain-free subjects using a modified version of the submaximal-effort tourniquet technique. The subjects were 14 volunteers (7 male, 7 female) without known pathology that could cause pain. Their mean age was $26.7{\pm}2.0$ years. A single-blind, sham controlled, parallel-group method was used. The primary outcome measure was the change in the self-report of pain intensity during 1 of 3 possible interventions: (1) IFC, (2) TENS, or (3) sham electrotherapy. The IFC and TENS were administered on the forearm, and the sham electrotherapy group received no current output via a dummy stimulator. The results show that a 2-way repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed that there was no change in pain intensity during treatment when all 3 groups were considered together. The mean to pain intensity with the IFC intervention was no different than with TENS. Thus, Statistical analysis showed that both interventions decreased the pain intensity ratings significantly and the difference between interventions was not simply insignificant. IFC has been shown to be more comfortable than TENS in present studies and is likely to be better accepted and tolerated by patients, clinical investigation is warranted.