Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and cryotherapy in the treatment of students with primary dysmenorrhea: pilot study

• Autor(a) principal: Araújo, Ana Helena Vale de
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Santos, Lucas Sinesio, Neves, Vanessa Ariane, da Silva Júnior, Renan Alves, Gama, Gabriela Lopes
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Ciências em Saúde
• DOI: 10.21876/rcshci.v10i4.1029
• Texto Completo: https://portalrcs.hcitajuba.org.br/index.php/rcsfmit_zero/article/view/1029
• topic: cryotherapy; dysmenorrhea; pain; physical therapy specialty; transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation; crioterapia; dismenorreia; dor; estimulação elétrica nervosa transcutânea; fisioterapia

Objective: To compare the effects of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) and cryotherapy in relieving painful symptoms in students with primary dysmenorrhea (PD). Methods: Cross-sectional and quantitative study, with 20 university women randomly divided into two groups: TENS Group (GT) whose participants were submitted to a 45 min TENS session with a frequency of 120 Hz and a pulse duration of 100 µs and Cryotherapy Group (CG), whose participants were submitted to a cryotherapy session for 20 min. Women with regular menstrual cycles, nulligravidas, without a report of pelvic disease, and with dysmenorrhea with pain levels between 4 and 10 during the first three days of menstruation were included. Those with contraindications to TENS or cryotherapy and who used drugs up to 24 h before the intervention were excluded. The participants' pain levels were recorded before and shortly after the intervention.Results: Women aged between 18 and 27 years (mean 22.8 ± 2.4 years) were evaluated. In addition to painful symptoms, all of them presented some other associated symptoms, the most common being diarrhea and fatigue (80%, each). The two-way ANOVA test of repeated measures considering group and evaluation factors revealed an effect only for the evaluation factor (p < 0.001) with no effect for the group/evaluation interaction (p = 0.09). Conclusion: TENS and cryotherapy are efficient resources for relieving pain symptoms in women with PD, with no superiority between the approaches.