Single-Blinded, Randomized Preliminary Study Evaluating the Effect of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation on Postoperative Pain in Patients with Colles' Fracture.
OBJECTIVE
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) has been widely used for pain relief; however, the effect remains controversial. The authors hypothesized that TENS can relieve acute pain. Therefore, a single-blinded, randomized, controlled preliminary study was designed on postoperative pain in patients with Colles' fracture.


METHODS
In total, 36 patients were assigned to a real TENS or sham TENS group (18 patients in each group). TENS (50 Hz, 15 min/day) was applied near the Quchi (LI11) and Waiguan (TE5) surfaces of the operative side continuously for 5 days after surgical treatment.


RESULTS
The visual analog scale (VAS) scores did not differ significantly between the real and sham TENS groups before the TENS period, from the first to fifth day after surgical treatment (all p > 0.05), whereas the VAS scores were lower for the real TENS group than for the sham TENS group in the post-TENS period, on the first, third, fourth, and fifth days after surgical treatment (all p ≤ 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
TENS might be valuable as a treatment of postoperative pain, but clinicians and researchers should know that it is no different than a treatment with placebo. Especially, since this form of treatment and sham treatment has a great chance of working under the mechanism of the placebo effect due to its single-blindedness.
1 Department of Surgery, Yuanli Lee's General Hospital , Lee's Medical Corporation, Miaoli, Taiwan .|2 Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University , Taichung, Taiwan .
Chao-Hsin
CH
Lee
3 Department of Surgery, Dajia Lee's General Hospital , Lee's Medical Corporation, Taichung, Taiwan .
Tien-Yueh
TY
Lee
4 Department of Ophthalmology, Nantou Hospital , Ministry of Health and Welfare, Nantou, Taiwan .
Jiann-Shyan
JS
Her
2 Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University , Taichung, Taiwan .|5 Center for Personalized Medicine, China Medical University Hospital , Taichung, Taiwan .
Wen-Ling
WL
Liao
2 Graduate Institute of Integrated Medicine, College of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University , Taichung, Taiwan .|6 Department of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University Hospital , Taichung, Taiwan .|7 Research Center for Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, China Medical University , Taichung, Taiwan .
Ching-Liang
CL
Hsieh
D000328:Adult; D003100:Colles' Fracture / Q000534:rehabilitation* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D004561:Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation / Q000379:methods*