Division of Physical Therapy, St. Paul's Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, No. 250, Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei, 11031, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 27;11(1):19168. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-98690-6.
By enhancing vagal activity, auricle transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) is developed as a non-invasive therapy for heart failure. Nevertheless, though shoulder TENS used for treating adhesive capsulitis could affect vagal tone, its potential impact on heart functions remains unclear. In this study, electrocardiogram (ECG) and heart rate (HR) of subjects in response to sham, right-sided, or left-sided shoulder TENS (TENS-S, TENS-R, and TENS-L, respectively; 5 min) were recorded and analyzed. During the stimulation period, TENS-R constantly and TENS-L transiently decreased the HR of subjects; both TENS-R and TENS-L increased powers of the low- and high-frequency spectra. While TENS-R exhibiting no effect, TENS-L increased the ratio of low/high-frequency power spectrum indicating TENS-R decreased the HR through potentiating cardiac vagal tone. Collectively, these results suggest TENS could be an early and non-invasive therapy for heart failure patients before considering implant devices or devices are not feasible; moreover, therapists/physicians need to carefully monitor the potential adverse events during treatment for patient safety.Trial registration: The study protocol was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03982472; 11/06/2019).
通过增强迷走神经活动，耳廓经皮神经电刺激（TENS）被开发为心力衰竭的非侵入性治疗方法。然而，尽管用于治疗粘连性囊炎的肩部 TENS 可以影响迷走神经张力，但它对心脏功能的潜在影响尚不清楚。在这项研究中，记录和分析了受试者对假刺激、右侧或左侧肩部 TENS（分别为 TENS-S、TENS-R 和 TENS-L；持续 5 分钟）的心电图（ECG）和心率（HR）。在刺激期间，TENS-R 持续降低受试者的 HR，TENS-L 短暂降低；TENS-R 和 TENS-L 均增加了低频和高频谱的功率。虽然 TENS-R 没有效果，但 TENS-L 增加了低频/高频功率谱的比值，表明 TENS-R 通过增强心脏迷走神经张力降低了 HR。总之，这些结果表明，在考虑植入设备或设备不可行之前，TENS 可能是心力衰竭患者的早期和非侵入性治疗方法；此外，治疗师/医生需要在治疗过程中仔细监测潜在的不良反应，以确保患者安全。试验注册：该研究方案已在 ClinicalTrials.gov 注册（NCT03982472；2019 年 11 月 6 日）。
