Originally published October 25 2005
New magnetic stimulation device may help stroke victims to a greater recovery
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
For stroke victims, the new treatment called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) could help them regain motor function and their speech faculties by generating a magnetic field, which passes through the skull and induces brain activity with electric currents.
According to the American Stroke Association, about 700,000 Americans suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.
There are other types of experimental therapies, but they are not being tested on patients yet.
A device generates a magnetic field, which goes through a patient's skull and induces electric currents into the brain.
TMS can improve the motor function and also other types of cognitive functions that are lost after a stroke like speech and memory, as well as spatial orientation that is related to the brain function and lost after a stroke.
Six months after a patient suffers a stroke, he reaches a plateau where he cannot further improve.
Circling the wave with magnetic waves can help improve brain activity after a stroke.
"You do not expect for the improvements in this phase, so this treatment can be considered successful," neurologist Dr. Felipe Fregni, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said.
One important aspect is that if we couple the effects of this treatment with other types of therapies such as physical therapy, speech therapy, we might be able to improve even further their function after the stroke."
This increased activity in the healthy hemisphere hinders the function of the part of the brain that suffered the stroke.
All of the brain's resources are then directed to the healthy hemisphere, and the part of the brain that suffered the stroke doesn't have other resources to recover its function and activity.
TMS helps decrease the activity in the healthy hemisphere to allow the affected hemisphere to increase its function.
One significant side effect of brain stimulation is that it can cause seizures.
As of now, patients must go to the hospital to receive TMS.
However, Fregni says, one alternative to this is the possibility of implanting electrodes in patients' brains, so the electrodes can keep the brain stimulated for much longer.
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