Clinical Practice Area

Scrambler Therapy® is an already authorized methodology for ambulatory care and hospital facility use worldwide and therefore can no longer be considered an experimental treatment. Part of the therapy is operator-dependent. Apart from full compliance to its protocol guidelines and usage, to eliminate or reduce to a minimum this component the following requirements are necessary:

- Official training course on correct methodology usage, completion of learning curve,correct management of incompatible drugs, self-assessment in the ability to correctly use the Scrambler Therapy®.

- Usage if possible of the completely free telematics support network ST-NET.

Clinical efficacy

Short and long term effects of a single treatment cycle depend on the type of pathology and other variables. In most cases of benign pain one treatment cycle is enough to produce pain relief for at least two months, but can even exceed 12 months if neuropathic damage is limited (mono-radicular) or the pathology has no evolution feature. Other variables that influence the treatment outcome are pharmaceutical interactions. Immediate analgesic efficacy during the treatment is a constant factor regardless of pathology and pain intensity.

Chronic benign pain

The treatment requires cycles (that can be repeated) of at least 10 treatments, 5 days a week (two weeks in a row). A special case is that of patients who are using anticonvulsants. In this situation, as a norm, the response is slower and less stable in time, and a cycle of 10 treatments might not be enough. The analytical explanation is that anticonvulsants diminish pain information, but also synthetic information of non-pain generated by Scrambler Therapy®. Comparison of Experimental data in different ways of treatment and follow -up strongly support this hypothesis. Anticonvulsant usage is therefore not a specific contraindication, or indication of lack of efficacy on pain due to anticonvulsants, but simply an expression of therapy combination that experimentally and in theory is unfavorable. This problem can be partially overcome by increasing the number of treatment/cycles when necessary.

Scrambler Therapy® cannot prevent beforehand expressions of acute pain linked to possible mechanical damage associated to movement (incident pain). In this case, one must consider the concurrent use of other therapies (physical and/or surgical) aimed at containing evocation of incident pain.

Oncologic pain due to anticancer treatments

If the tumor has been successfully removed, this type of pain follows the course of chronic benign pain.

Oncologic pain (palliative treatments)

Usage is in line with the patient's needs and oncologic pain guidelines.Treatment protocols are in line with what prescribed for palliative care, including treatments when necessary.

ST treatment of a standard cycle lasts an average of 10 applications, which is modified to the following conditions:

Early termination

it is expected to be terminated early when 24 hours after the last treatment, the patient is free of pain.

Cycle extension

 A cycle extension beyond 10 treatments is expected (average duration) when:

- You must make weaning analgesic drugs during the course of treatment with ST.

- At the end of the treatment the pain cycle is not reset and in subsequent treatments continue to occur significant improvements.

What happens during the treatment

Scrambler Therapy® is a non-invasive treatment, totally automated and does not require parameter setting by the operator. The operator must identify the correct surface application areas via dermatomes. If the treatment is carried out correctly, the patient will immediately feel pain-free, regardless of initial pain intensity. It is unnecessary or required for the patient to feel stimulation in the pain area, since the active principle is not to block nerve conduction by extended electric involvement of the nerve. If during treatment the patient still perceives pain, even if mitigated, the result will probably not suffice to maintain analgesic effect as time goes by, and one must check for possible application flaws (see: 10 Basic Rules and Frequent Errors).

Self-assessment in the ability to correctly use the Scrambler Therapy®

Key to the pain system remodulation process achieved by Scrambler Therapy® is the ability to zero out pain during each treatment session, without the patient feeling any discomfort due to stimulation. In the standard treatments envisaged and other specific indications included in the Home Page at “Rapid support for research and best clinical practice”, this is always possible. Therefore one can easily and automatically assess the ability to correctly use the methodology based on being able to zero out pain during the treatment session in the indicated conditions.

Other considerations

Assistance support guarantees reproducible results and is consistent with studies based on EBM, aimed at eliminating or reducing within allowed limits each disturbance variable that could alter clinical trial results. If the information available on this website in insufficient, feel free to contact us for any specific need.