Acute effects of medium-frequency electrical energy transfer (TECAR) and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) on pain and flexibility in athletes with an acute hamstring injury: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract

This study compared the acute effects of electrical energy transfer (TECAR) and transcutaneous electrical stimulation (TENS) on pain and flexibility after a hamstring injury. Young athletes received either a 20 min TECAR (n = 24) or TENS (n = 26) session within 5 days following a hamstring injury, while the control (CON, n = 25) group was instructed to rest. Visual analogue scale (VAS), functional Assessment Scale for Acute Hamstring Injuries (FASH), straight leg raise test (SLR), and sit-and-reach scores (STR) were obtained prior to, immediately, 24, and 48 h after therapy. Group differences were detected after therapy in VAS and FASH scores (p < 0.05). Compared to pre-therapy measurements, VAS scores showed a greater decrease in the TECAR group (-38.75% to -63.33%) than in the TENS group (-16.67% to -25.00%) and both were greater than in the CON group (-2.81% to -9.81%) (p < 0.05). The TECAR group improved FASH scores (28.57%-48.21%) more than the TENS group (15.89%-27.79%) and both groups more than the CON group (0%-8.33%) (p < 0.05). The increase in SLR and STR was greater in the TECAR group (6.26%-13.96%) than in the TENS (1.72%-9.53%) and CON groups (0%-3.03%). These results suggest that in the acute phase of hamstring injury, the use of TECAR and, to a lesser extent, TENS may relieve pain symptoms and bring some improvements in flexibility more than instructing patients to rest.

Keywords

Diathermy / Physical therapy / Rehabilitation / Sports medicine / Physiotherapy / Strain / Injury / Muscle

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Anna Kelli: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Validation, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Conceptualization. Thomas Apostolou: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Supervision, Project administration, Conceptualization. Paris Iakovidis: Writing - review & editing, Super-vision, Software, Methodology. Georgios Koutras: Writing - review & editing, Methodology. Eleftherios Kellis: Writing - review & editing, Project administration, Conceptualization.

Ethical approval statement

The athlete gave his informed written consent to use all his publicly available data provided on his website. The study was approved by Ethikkommission des Kantons St. Gallen (1-6-2010). The study was implemented in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Declaration of competing interest

This study was approved by the Aristotle University Ethics Committee (Sports and physical Education-specific Department, ERC-007/2022) in accordance with Helsinki Declaration and its amendments from the 64th WMA General Assembly, Fortaleza, Brazil, October 2013.

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