|
|
|
|
News and Views Vol. 1, No 1 Welcome to the International Functional Electrical Stimulation Society, Inc.™ (IFESS) News and Views. IFESS Mission The goals of IFESS are to promote the research, application, and understanding of electrical stimulation as it is utilised in the field of medicine through meetings, tutorials, publications, and the exchange of information. This News and Views will bring you information on our annual conferences, Membership, ordering information for our CD-ROM Proceedings, as well as Consumer and Provider educational material related to the medical application of electrical stimulation. We hope you find the information here both informative and pleasing. If you have any questions or comments we would love to hear from you. Message from the President FES systems are emerging from a wide range of exciting research and clinical needs: e.g., new technology will make it possible to do natural-like interfaces to the nervous tissue, and recent discoveries within neuroscience on the plasticity of the brain have renewed the interest in applying pattern electrical and magnetic stimulation of nerve tissue to influence the cortical and spinal reorganisation after injuries. Overall remarkable developments are indeed to be expected in the near future in this respect. Improved technologies and increased understanding of the biology give a natural setting for further developments towards clinically useful and commercially viable FES systems. One important focus for FES research is therefore the integration of engineering, neuroscience and clinical research and education efforts in order to transfer the results to clinical environment and manufacturing. Secondly, it is very important to increase the awareness of the great potential for FES in restoring sensory-motor functions. The International Functional Electrical Stimulation Society (IFESS) has a very important responsibility and role to play in this process. The “News & Views” newsletter is one of several initiatives that the IFESS Society will take to increase the awareness of FES and I am very delighted that professor Dejan Popovic has accepted the responsibility as temporary editor of “News & Views”. Dejan has contributed importantly to the FES research with a clear focus towards the clinical needs, and being one of the pioneers within this field the Society have an outstanding starting editor of “News & Views”. I hope you will enjoy reading this first number of News & Views as much as I have. Prof. Thomas Sinkjær, PhD, Dr. Med. Sci. Membership Membership in the International Functional Electrical Stimulation Society (hereinafter referred to as “The International FES Society” the “Corporation”) shall be open to all individual persons, organisations, or other entities interested in the field of electrical stimulation upon application to the Secretary, accompanied by remittance for dues as hereinafter provided. A member who does not remit annual dues for renewal of membership will have membership revoked if the delinquency exists for one calendar year. The Membership Categories include: §Regular Membership: Open to any individual person with a professional degree (Bachelors or Higher) working in a research, educational, commercial, or clinical environment, and directly or indirectly concerned with FES. Regular Membership entitles the holder to vote in all elections. §Student Membership: Open to any individual person with full-time student status at a recognised degree-granting institution. A letter from the Dean's Office or equivalent certifying this status must be submitted annually. Student Membership does not have voting privileges. §Corporate Membership: Open to any corporate entity wishing to participate in the activities of the society in any way. Corporate Membership does not have voting privileges. §User/Consumer Individual Membership: Open to any individual person who is either a user, potential user, or directly concerned with the care of a user or potential user of FES. User/Consumer Individual Membership does not have voting privileges. §User/Consumer Group Membership: Open to any not-for-profit entity directly or indirectly concerned with FES wishing to participate in the activities of the society in any way. User/Consumer Membership does not have voting privileges. §Honorary Member: A special category of membership (non-voting, exempt from dues) that is bestowed upon individuals who may fall outside of the above categories, but who have made a special contribution to the advancement of FES, including contributions from a non-scientific or non-medical point of view. Honorary Membership would be bestowed upon recommendation of the board of directors and approval by a simple majority of voting members. Honorary Membership does not have voting privileges. Meetings The IFESS, Inc. is organising with the help of volunteering hosts annual meetings. So far IFESS was involved in organisation of six annual meetings. This issue is published on the occasion of the 7th Annual IFESS Conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia chaired by Prof. Tadej Bajd and Uros Stanic taking place from June 25 to June 29, 2002. The Official 2002 Conference site may be accessed at: http://robo.fe.uni-lj.si/ifess2002 In July 2003 the IFESS and the Asia-Pacific FES Society will be holding their annual combined Conference at the Novitel Twin Waters Resort on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Conference information and a link to the official site will be provided soon. (Co-Chairs: Glen Davis, Ph.D. FACSM, and James Middleton, MBBS, Ph.D.) The 9th Annual IFESS Conference will be held at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) in the UK September 8 through September 11, 2004. Conference information and a link to the official site will be provided soon. (Chair: Ian Swain, Ph.D.) Annual Conferences CD-ROM The IFESS CD-ROM was developed to disseminate scientific research findings in the field of electrical stimulation to as broad an audience as possible and to make available the collective works of our Society since the formation of IFESS in a simple and easily obtainable format. We hope that you find the information contained herein useful and easily accessible. The CD includes the following: · I IFESS Conference Proceedings, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 1996. · II IFESS Conference Proceedings, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1997. · III IFESS/INS Conference Proceedings, Luzern, Switzerland, 1998. · IV IFESS Conference Proceedings, Sendai, Japan, 1999. · V IFESS Conference Proceedings, Aalborg, Denmark, 2000. · VI IFESS Conference Proceedings, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 2001 · Vienna Electrostimulation Workshop Proceedings, Vienna, Austria, 1998. · Vienna Electrostimulation Workshop Proceedings, Vienna, Austria, 2001. The CD-ROM sells for the extremely low price of only $35 plus shipping. For volume purchasing, please contact the Editor, Paul Meadows. (paul.meadows@bionics.com). Committees Standing and ad-hoc committees are permissible. These will be constructed as directed by the officers or Board of Directors. The president shall prepare a written charge to the committee that will be approved by the Board of Directors. Educational Material One of the missions of the International FES Society is to provide educational materials to potential consumers of electrical stimulation, including patients and families, health care professionals, government representatives and third-party payers. The purpose of this document is to introduce the potential applications of electrical stimulation to alleviate problems faced by individuals with disabilities. The intent is not to endorse or to criticise any singular approach to the use of electrical stimulation, but to present electrical stimulation protocols from the world community and to identify differences in treatment philosophy, if they exist. Research and development efforts in electrical stimulation may be referenced, the focus is on the practical, every-day uses of electrical stimulation that result in improved function and quality of life. References to commercially available products and links to other associations are provided for information and do not constitute an endorsement by IFESS. Visit our Web Site: http://www.ifess.org IFESS Executive Board:
Thomas Sinkjaer, Ph.D., Dr. Med Sci, Denmark, President Board of Directors:
Jane Burridge, Ph.D., U.K. International IFESS Corporate Office:
Manfred Bijak, Ph.D., University of Vienna, Department of Biomedical Engineering
and Physics, AKH - Ebene 4/L, Waehringerguertel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria Contact Information in U.S.A:
Paul Meadows, 25129 Rye Canyon Loop, Valencia, CA 91355 USA, IFESS Profile IFESS membership is composed of primarily academic leaders in the field of biomedical engineering, medical doctors, and members of the electrical stimulation manufacturing community, as well as students and users of FES technology. Anyone who has an interest in our field is welcome to join and to attend our annual conferences. IFESS Associated Societies IFESS is directly associated with the International Neuromodulation Society (INS) and the Asian Pacific Functional Electrical Stimulation Society (APFESS). Neuromodulation - Official Journal of IFESS and INS From 1999 IFESS and INS decided to share the same official journal: Neuromodulation. Neuromodulation disseminates scientific and clinical information relevant to the field of neuromodulation. The journal's sole purpose is to advance the basic and clinical science of the field of neuromodulation. Neuromodulation publishes original, scientific works, scientific reviews, abstracts of papers accepted for review at national and international congresses, and past and future news of events and activities of the society and its membership. Because the science of neuromodulation transcends many disciplines such as anesthesiology, angiology, cardiology, neurology, neuroscience, rehabilitation medicine, and vascular surgery, the information presented varies widely. Neuromodulation is indexed and covered by SciSearch, ISI Alerting Services, and Neuroscience Citation Index. The journal is published four times a year and broken into two sections - one dedicated to articles traditional to INS (pain modulation, basic and clinical research) and the other to FES. Functional Electrical Stimulation: How and when it started? (part 1) [1] In the eighteenth century, static electric machines were developed to a high degree of sophistication. These were based on the principle of using friction on insulators such as glass to dislodge electrons and thus develop high voltages due to the resulting charge separation. The first electrical capacitor, known as the Leyden jar, was invented in 1746 to store the charge. Benjamin Franklin, among others, experimented with machines like this one to treat paralysed individuals. He noted that in many cases he could produce in-voluntary contractions of paralysed muscles, but he gave up his attempts when he failed to note any long-term benefits.
By the end of the eighteenth century the basic principles of electricity were understood, and it was known that electricity was the physical phenomenon by which a static electric machine caused muscle contractions. It was not proven, however, that muscles and nerves normally utilised electricity to function or that they generated their own electricity. Luigi Galvani suggested the latter possibility in his theory of animal electricity in 1791. He performed many animal experiments in which he used metallic bridges to connect different parts of nerve-muscle preparations and studied the conditions under which muscle contraction occurred. From these experiments he concluded that the animal generated its own electricity and that the metallic bridge completed the circuit, allowing the electricity to flow. Alessandro Volta in 1800 claimed that the metallic bridges used by Galvani had actually generated the electricity by utilising dissimilar metals just as in his voltaic pile (battery). Galvani was able to counter Volta by showing that if the metallic conductors were eliminated and the end of a cut nerve was looped back to touch its attached muscle, a contraction would occur. Galvani called this driving force "animal electricity." At the beginning of the nineteenth century, scientists were well aware of the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, but their relationship was not understood. Hans Christian Oersted described the effect of current flowing through a wire on a magnetised needle in 1820. This provided a connection between electricity and magnetism. Michael Faraday in 1821 showed that a magnet could exert a force on current-carrying wires. He also discovered magnetic induction, which is the induced flow of current in one circuit that is close to another current-carrying circuit. The first practical device for producing sustained muscle contractions was the magnetoelectric generator. One of the more elaborate varieties that was used in the 1850s for stimulating nerves and muscles is shown in Figure 2. It consists of a coil, which is coupled by pulleys to a hand crank, and an adjacent horseshoe magnet separated by an air gap from the coil. As the coil was rotated in the magnetic field, an alternating sinusoidal current was generated at the frequency of rotation of the coil. This alternating current produced repetitive muscle contractions. Magneto-electric stimulators had the disadvantage of requiring an external source of rotational energy. The control of the output level was accomplished by positioning a soft metal magnetic shunt across the ends of the horseshoe magnet. This was difficult to control and resulted in poor output reproducibility. Some of the more sophisticated magnetoelectric generators had elaborate gears and linkages connecting the moveable shunt with a "calibrated" mechanical output indicator in the cover of the device. Despite the drawbacks, it is interesting to note that Albert Hyman in 1930 used a modified magnetoelectric generator in his pioneering work on heart stimulation to reverse cardiac standstill. He named his stimulator "the artificial pacemaker" (Hyman, 1930).
A more practical neuromuscular stimulator was the induction coil stimulator, or the faradaic stimulator. It consisted of a mechanical interrupter in series with a battery and the primary of a transformer. The output from the secondary of the transformer is a series of pulses at the frequency of the interrupter. [1] This text is based on FT Hambrecht, 1992 Message from the Editor I am glad that the Board of Directors decided to offer me to start editing the News & Views of IFESS. The plan is to publish the News and Views and distribute them to members and post it on the official web site of the Society at least twice a year. The Vol. 1, No 1 is dedicated to general information and begins the story on what FES is and what it could and should be. The history of FES is certainly of interest for many people in this field, because in many ways it shows the directions, yet also that this field needs break through devices and methods in order to become a routine clinical practice. The start of News and Views coincide with the finalisation of the long pending project to prepare in digital form the series of ten Proceedings "Advances in External control of Human Extremities" published in relation to well known Dubrovnik meetings between 1962 and 1990. This CD is now available from Center for SMI, Aalborg University, Denmark. http://www.smi.auc.dk/publications/ I am using the opportunity to call all members to send their suggestions, contributions, comments, reports and other material that they feel is of interest for IFESS membership to Prof. Dejan Popovic, dbp@smi.auc.dk |
|
Send mail to
paul.meadows ifess.org with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
