Pain clinics and physiotherapists have been using large, complex pieces of equipment with cables to relieve back or joint pain but a company says they have developed a breakthrough in anti-pain treatments. They claim people suffering from headaches will soon be able to use this technique to treat them at home rather than depend on drugs with numerous side-effects.
The technique is called CEFALY(R) and was demonstrated for the first time at the international medical fair MEDICA in Düsseldorf last November. A polish company (Medic-Mar http://www.medicmar.com.pl) has made Poland the first country where Cefaly is available for patients suffering from headaches.
They say their technological breakthrough is two-fold, involving miniaturization and perfect precision. A team of engineers and doctors from medical Belgian company STX-Med, based in the Science Park of Liege and in close connection with the University of Liege, has succeeded in integrating all the required electronics into a pair of spectacles, which are worn on the head with an electrode. The device is known as the Cefaly(R) (http://www.cefaly.com) and it is simplicity itself to use: a simple press on the single button and the treatment commences automatically.
They say the other part of its success lies in the precision of the parameters used. The head is not like the back or the joints, it has a completely different network of sensitivity and there is a very narrow margin between effective values and pain. The slightest inaccuracy in the electronic parameters can lead to the treatment becoming painful or ineffective. Ultra-precise parameters, on the other hand, allow the physiology of the nervous system to be harnessed to achieve an effective pain-busting action while at the same time producing a very pleasant tingling feeling on the head.
People suffering from migraines, stress headaches or chronic headaches in Poland now have access to this and the company says CEFALY helps to recover a quality of life without drugs, by first reducing the frequency of headaches and also to alleviate pain during an attack.
