Electrical Stimulation (or e-stim) sounds intimidating….. but it doesn’t have to be. It is just another one of the “things” that Kidz has to offer to boost your intensive camp session. It is not used by every participant/child but it can be a beneficial under the right conditions.
E-stim comes in many forms and is used for many reasons when it comes to Physical Therapy. Some of you may have even had it yourself in the forms of TENS (which is very nice for chronic pain). At Kidz, we use it for 3 main reasons - Biofeedback, Neuromuscular E-stim (NMES) and sensory-level stim (kind of like TENS). If your child is appropriate for any of these treatments, we would have a discussion prior to use.
Biofeedback helps kids find their muscles and learn how to activate them, the child feels nothing from the pads/electrodes with this treatment - the electrodes receive info, not give. The system used at Kidz connects to an app that provides fun visual games as well as auditory goal/response to help motivate muscle activation.
A couple quick examples of how the biofeedback works with one of the games:
The NMES option and sensory-level stimulation option are both types of treatment where the child will feel little tingles (I like to call it butterflies) from the electrodes. This type of e-stim helps the child feel where their muscle is and reminds them to use them. If tolerated at a little higher level, it can actually help strengthen the muscle and/or assist with whatever exercise the child is completing.
Leave the complicated "know how" to Kidz Physical Therapy And Don't Worry!
Your child will not be leaving the session looking like this......
