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the Profile of Mood States, a standardized psychological test of
depression, anxiety, fatigue, and cognitive function, among other
factors.
It was found that the CES treated patients improved significantly on
every measure following three weeks of CES treatment. Neither the
sham-treated patients nor the placebo control patients showed
improvement on any area measured. These results are given in Fig. 2,
where it can also be seen that the patients who received open clinical
treatment following the double-blind phase of the research, all at
self chosen current intensity settings, actually fared better than
those who received the pre set, subsensation level treatment, as would
be expected.
A large clinical practice in Southern California chose to complete
their research with the open clinical protocol [24]. Again, patients
received CES treatments, one hour per day for three weeks. All tests
and measures were as described above. They halted the study after the
first 20 patients had completed it to see what the results had been.
These results can be seen in Fig. 3. The researchers were so impressed
that they decided to run the study for an additional 12 months, and
are in that process as of this writing.
Researchers at the Louisiana State University Medical School pain
clinic are currently implementing the fibromyalgia study double-blind
protocol [25], and several other clinics and hospitals are reviewing
the protocol for possible participation.
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3.3. Research in headaches
Perhaps the earliest US study on headache was done as a Masters Degree
thesis at North Texas State University in Denton. In that
double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 18 migraine headache patients
were divided into three groups of 6 each. In the treated group, CES
was given for 45 minutes a day for 15 days, Monday through Friday.
Over a two week period immediately following the study it was found
that CES treated patients, but not the sham-treated or placebo control
patients, reported significant reductions in both headache intensity
and duration [26].
In another study of migraine headaches, this time a doctoral
dissertation research project, 36 patients were assigned to
biofeedback (BF), CES, or biofeedback combined with CES. Eight
treatment sessions of 15 minutes each were given over a two to three
week period. The patients measured the frequency-time intensity of
headaches daily during the eight days of therapy, then over a one
month, a two month and a three month period following the treatments.
There was no difference between the groups at the end of the eight
treatment sessions, but a steadily increasing cumulative improvement
took place over the three month period following the study, as shown
in Fig. 4. The biofeedback group had an accumulative
improvement of 70% while the combined BF/CES group, the group that did
best over all, had an accumulative improvement of 400% by the end of
the third month [27].
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3.4. Research on dental pain
In a double-blind dental study, 50 patients were divided into two
groups, 30 receiving CES and 20 receiving sham CES treatment. They
were randomly assigned to procedures including oral surgery,
restoration, tooth extractions, root planing, pulp extirpation, and
temporomandibular joint therapy.
It was found that 24 of the 30 CES patients (80%) were able to undergo
dental procedures without other anesthesia, while 15 of the 20 sham
treated patients (75%) requested anesthesia. In the operative groups,
13 of 14 CES patients (93%) did not require anesthesia, while 4 of 7
sham-treated patients (43%) did. All patients required anesthesia for
endodontic procedures. All CES patients stated that the use of CES
would be their first choice in future dental visits [30].
Another dentist used CES in 600 dental procedures over a 12-month
period. 76% of the patients reported a 90% or greater reduction in
pain with CES and did not request additional anesthetics. When the
results were broken down by procedure, 83% of the patients who
underwent 71 scaling and prophylactic procedures did not ask for
additional anesthesia, compared with 76% of those undergoing 473
restorative procedures, and 55% of those undergoing 29 crown
preparations.
A serendipitous, but not surprising finding was that all patients
reported feeling more relaxed than usual while in the dental chair
[31].
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The
Use of Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation in the Management of Chronic
Pain: A Review