TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL NERVOUS STIMULATION (TENS) IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC LUMBAR PAIN: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE (Atena Editora)

Abstract

Introduction: Chronic low back pain (LC) is a debilitating condition, associated with comorbidity and high health costs, and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is a non-pharmacological alternative used in the treatment of this pain.Objective: To review the current literature on the effectiveness of TENS in the management of chronic low back pain. Methodology: A systematic review of the literature was carried out in PubMed databases with the descriptors “(Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation OR TENS) AND Chronic low back pain”, only randomized studies and clinical trials from the last 5 years were selected (n=30). Studies that disagreed with the objectives were excluded (n=14). Results and discussion: A randomized study demonstrated that the use of TENS was effective in the treatment of patients with LC, so that analgesia induced by 30-minute applications had an average duration of 10.5 hours. In addition, two other studies agreed that TENS, for 2 hours/day for 3 months, corroborated the decrease in pain intensity in patients with LC. Regarding the long-term analgesic effects, a prospective study concluded that patients with LC, who used TENS 4 to 6 times a day for 2 weeks had a 28% reduction in pain intensity in the six months following therapy. In disagreement, another prospective, randomized study found that daily 1-hour sessions of TENS for three months did not show significant results in the management of CL after 6 weeks of the end of therapy (p=0.351). Conclusion: TENS proved to be effective in reducing short-term pain in patients with LC, however, the literature analyzed was uncertain about its use for long-term treatment, lacking studies of better methodological quality in this aspect.