Stroke therapies: Functional Electrical Stimulation

The machine is small and it’s connected with a wire to four small pads that you place on the muscles you want to affect. Depending on the current, you can feel the electricity buzzing through your arm. Your fingers twitch and move involuntarily. It’s like an “arm buzz” and, for someone who hasn’t had a stroke, it’s a neutral feeling.

It’s Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) and it’s being used by occupational therapists (OTs) to help stroke patients recover movement in their affected limbs.

FES uses small electrical currents to stimulate the nerves that connect to muscles paralysed (in this case) by a stroke. For someone with a right hemisphere stroke, this is often the muscles in the left hand as it’s most affected by the stroke. Under different circumstances, you can use FES for other limbs such as  legs or feet. But after a stroke, the upper limb is targetted because it’s the last to recover (and often doesn’t recover at all).

The theory behind FES is that if the muscles in the affected limb are moved via an electrical current then the patient’s brain will be receiving movement-related feedback that it can use to re-learn that movement. When combined with other therapies in the sub-acute stage (the stage that Mum is in at the moment), FES has been shown to improve things like hand function and dexterity.

Unfortunately, for stroke patients like Mum the feeling of FES may not be neutral and may instead be painful. This is because of her neuropathic pain (a phenomena I’ll try to do a piece on sometime in the future).

Once again the internet has a volume of information on FES for stroke patients so please google. I did find this online pamphlet from Stroke Engine. I’ve only just found this Canadian site but so far it seems like an excellent source of information.