A Guide to Pulsed Magnetic Therapy by Dr David C Somerville

Author:Dr David C Somerville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brown Dog Books

Chapter Seven

ORIGINS OF PULSED MAGNETISM IN THERAPY

Anecdotal evidence of externally generated electrical activity aiding healing processes within the body has largely come from orthopaedics. Non-union fractures occur in up to 20% of all human long bone fractures. Where such fractures have been bilateral, some of the cases show normal healing on one side but non-union on the other. Explanations for why this should occur are sparse but research by Becker et al suggested that all injuries have an electrical component as part of the healing process. He suggested, as discussed in chapter 6, that research had proved the existence of perineural currents. It is now further suggested that these lead to the formation of ‘currents of injury’. The mechanisms assisting fracture repair by pulsed electromagnetism will be discussed in depth later in the book but have relevance to these natural currents established at injury sites.

If we look at different types of injury, then whenever a trauma occurs, nerves very close to the injury site may be damaged or even severed. In the central nervous system, the mechanism for neurological repair after trauma involving severance does not generally exist because of the type of cell that forms the myelin sheath.

Oligodendrocyte cells provide most of the myelin that wraps around nerve fibres in the spinal cord. Each oligodendrocyte cell myelinates about 15 individual axon (nerve) fibres. The availability of neurolemmacytes, that are neurological repair cells, are very few and far between so there has been very little evidence of healing of the spinal cord after severance. However, in the peripheral nervous system, Schwann cells form the myelin and each individual cell myelinates just one nerve fibre. These myelin cells have the ability to repair when damaged or severed. Cuts and injuries may have some numbness to start with but feeling is quickly regained as the nerves reconnect.

The reconnection of nerves that are severed has several mechanisms. The electrical potential established at the severance site will attract neurolemmacytes through slow axonal transport. This will aid reconnection of the axon by a process of chemotactic attraction and perineural current flow leakage (currents of injury) to the distal end of the severance. Schwann cells will be stimulated to repair over the site as the axon itself repairs and reconnects.

If we apply the above logic to fractures then, where the nerves that are present at the actual trauma site are severed, several events happen. The injury itself will cause a haematoma. The formation of capillaries through possible electric and chemotactic influences will then be the cause of calcium enriched blood to flood into the area. The perineural current from the severed nerves will establish a circuit, leaking small currents across the injury site. This small current may have two other major effects:

1. It will stimulate Pluripotent-haemopoietic stem cells to de-differentiate into osteoblasts, and also….

2. Stimulate the production of bone morphogenetic proteins to cause osteoblasts to become bone.

It is important to understand the stimulative effect of micro-currents in order to gain an overall understanding of pulsed magnetic therapy that, in essence, induces micro-currents in target tissue areas.

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