Clinical application of therapeutic electrical stimulation to improve walking ability

To improve walking ability, therapeutic electrical stimulation (TES) was applied, through percutaneous implantable electrodes, to the lower extremities of five hemiplegics with cerebrovascular accidents and three quadriplegics with cervical cord injury. Seven out of the eight cases increased 10 meter maximum walking speed. All the hemiplegics showed improvements in standing balance. Since electrode implantation required one week of quiet for the muscle, the muscular strength of the knee decreased during the first two weeks compared to the level before applying TES, then it increased and exceeded this level after the next four weeks.