Scrambler Therapy for the Management of Chronic Oncologic Pain: Integrative Literature Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32635/2176-9745.RBC.2022v68n1.1656Keywords:
neoplasms, transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation, pain management, cancer pain/therapy, chronic painAbstract
Introduction: Scrambler therapy is a novel, non-invasive pain modifying technique that utilizes transcutaneous electrical stimulation of pain fibers with the intent of re-organizing maladaptive signaling pathways. Objective: Evaluate the benefits of Scrambler therapy to manage the intensity of pain in oncologic patients. Method: Integrative literature review based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) in the electronic databases LILACS, PEDro, SciELO and PubMed. The descriptors “Scrambler therapy”, “cancer”, “pain” were randomly combined in addition to the Boolean operators AND, OR in Portuguese, English and Spanish with no time limitation. Results: For this review, 15 articles were found relevant. The Scrambler therapy machine is based on 5 artificial neurons controlled by an optimized algorithm to provide safety and effectiveness. The hardware receives information from the algorithm that creates the strings of “non-pain,” and processes them by transforming into potential flows of synthetic action (i.e. created by technology) functionally compatible with endogenous flows. Pain scrambler therapy had a potential to decrease pain in cancer patients. Conclusion: The positive findings from preliminary studies with Scrambler therapy endorses the benefits this device provides to manage oncologic pain.
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