A new guideline issued by the American Academy of Neurology finds that transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS), a widely used pain therapy involving a portable device, is not recommended to treat chronic low-back painpain that has persisted for three months or longerbecause research shows it is not effective. The guideline is published in the December 30, 2009, online issue of Neurology-, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The guideline determined that TENS can be effective in treating diabetic nerve pain, also called diabetic neuropathy, but more and better research is needed to compare TENS to other treatments for this type of pain.
Research on TENS for chronic low-back pain has produced conflicting results. For the guideline, the authors reviewed all of the evidence for low-back pain lasting three months or longer. Acute low-back pain was not studied. The studies to date show that TENS does not help with chronic low-back pain.
All but one of the studies excluded people with known causes of low-back pain, such as a pinched nerve, severe scoliosis (curving of the spine), severe spondylolisthesis (displacement of a backbone or vertebra) or obesity. In the one study that looked at low-back pain associated with known conditions, TENS was not shown to be effective. The only specific neurologic cause of chronic low-back pain where TENS was studied was multiple sclerosis, and TENS was not shown to help.