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What is pain?
Pain is the body’s own early warning system. Feeling pain is im-
portant, as it indicates an abnormal condition within the body
and serves as a warning to us before any further damage or in-
jury occurs. However, long-term, persistent pains – often known
as chronic pain – serve no obvious useful purpose once a dia-
gnosis has been made. TENS was developed to soothe or elimi-
nate certain types of chronic and acute pain.
We differentiate between two fundamental types of
pain:
•
Acute pain
as a chief symptom can often help the doctor with diagnosis and
the acute pain has a protective function for the patient.
•
Chronic pain
can often become part of the illness in itself. A patient suffering
from chronic pain will often suffer for years and experiences
changes in his/her personality structure.
The term “stimulation current therapy” serves as an umbrella
term for the electrical stimulation of nerves and muscles.
I
NTRODUCTION
manual_emt-4_270607 27.06.2007 14:44 Uhr Seite 40
