Electrotherapeutic Devices: Principles, Design, and Applications

Here is the first scientifically rigorous yet accessible guide to electrotherapeutic devices that combines essential technical, biological, and clinical background with hands-on guidelines for designing the most effective devices and treatment protocols. Rooted in accepted physics, chemistry, biology, and electrical engineering principles, this definitive one-stop resource introduces electrotherapeutic fundamentals and discusses the electrical properties of cells, tissues, and organs and how they respond to electrotherapy. It explains how these mechanisms of action impact device design, and provides computer simulations useful in developing device output characteristics and predicting device performance. All considerations involved in the design and analysis of devices and protocols are addressed, including such issues as waveform design, frequency selection, maximum and minimum current output, patient tissue impedance considerations, probe and electrode design, treatment intervals, reliability and consistency, safety, and cost. You get heads-up knowledge of clinical trial considerations and constraints, and of legal issues that can add significant costs to device development. This unique guide also brings you up to speed on the latest electrotherapy trends and developments in visual disease, wound and fracture healing, cancer, neurological disorders, and connective tissue disease, and reviews the growing body of clinical results that demonstrate its effectiveness. Supported by 87 illustrations, this timely work puts the state of the art in electrotherapy design and applications at your fingertips in a single convenient volume.