Comparison of the effects of interferential current between male and female healthy adults

• Autor(a) principal: Dallacorte, Dauana Arielli
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Sprizon, Giovana Silva, Bueno, Kimberly Suellin, Hotz, Pâmela Giovana, Aragão, Fernando Amâncio, Bertolini, Gladson Ricardo Flor
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Scientia Medica (Porto Alegre. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/scientiamedica/article/view/27660
• topic: electrical stimulation therapy; physical therapy modalities; sex characteristics; gender.; terapia por estimulação elétrica; modalidades de fisioterapia; características sexuais; gênero.

***Comparison of the effects of interferential current between male and female healthy adults***AIMS: To assess accommodation phenomena characteristics (threshold, time and amplitude/intensity) during stimulation with interferential current, comparing male and female healthy adults.METHODS: A non randomized clinical trial with intentional sampling by gender included 30 healthy adult volunteers aged between 18 and 25 years, who were divided in two groups (15 in the Female Group and 15 in the Male Group) and received a tetrapolar interferential current for 20 minutes, close to L1 and L5 vertebrae. The subjects were instructed to refer an intense but comfortable paresthesia sensation and to report the moment it diminished (accommodation), requiring increasing of the current intensity. The first three events of accommodation (AV1, AV2 and AV3), including time and amplitude threshold, were analyzed. The differences from AV1 to AV2 (D1) and AV2 to AV3 (D2) were also considered. The number of accommodations for each subject during the 20 minutes experiment was identified. ANOVA and Student's t-test were used for analysis and the significance level was set at 5%. RESULTS: In the Male Group the mean time for accommodation was higher in AV3 compared to AV1 and AV2. In the Female Group the accommodation mean time was higher in AV3 in relation to AV2, and in AV2 in relation to AV1. No differences were found in the Male Group for D1 and D2, but in the Female Group, D2 was superior to D1. Women were accommodated more quickly than men in all three assessments, but the differences between one evaluation and another were constant considering both groups. Both groups showed similar current intensity behavior comparing the three evaluations within the same group. In the comparison between groups, women had lower mean values of intensity in the three evaluations. The Female Group had 7.5±1.5 accommodations, and the Male Group had 5.9±2.0 accommodations (p=0.0367) during the 20 minutes of the experiment.CONCLUSIONS: In this sample of healthy young adults, men required higher interferential current amplitude to obtain a comfortable paresthesia and took more time to have accommodations, while women had more accommodation episodes.