Outline of the Electric Field Therapy Apparatus

1.1 The Electric Field Therapy Apparatus as a Physiotherapy Apparatus

The electric field therapy apparatus is a kind of physiotherapy apparatus. Physiotherapy leverages lubrication of the natural healing power of the body. In effect, it stimulates the reaction of the body towards maintaining its balance (homeostasis), by providing the body with physical energy to help its various self-feedback systems (e.g. autonomic nervous and endocrinal systems) operate smoothly.

The electric field therapy apparatus is different from any other physiotherapy apparatuses in such that the other devices provide physical energy such as heat, light, electricity and/or magnetism to body parts (e.g. shoulders, knees and/or elbows) in order to improve blood circulation or ease facing pains. The electric field therapy apparatus delivers only a very small amount of electrical energy sufficient to activate the natural healing systems.


1.2 Electric Field Therapy Apparatus Enhances the Power of Natural Healing

The advances of research and development with regard to electric field therapy apparatuses in Japan has introduced to clinical applications that have been carried out for more than 50 years. Today, many types designed for household use are widely available in addition to apparatuses for professional use in medical institutions.

A human body consists of approximately 6 billion cells that carry out a wide range of functions. The general function of the body activates a feedback mechanism that helps to maintain an optimum environment for these cells to perform their vital activities. In other words, when the external environment changes, the body functions to optimize its internal environment; including the osmotic pressure of body fluids, the gaseous composition and electrolyte composition of the blood, pH and body temperature. To maintain its internal environment constant, the cells and organs of our body are controlled by a self-feedback mechanism that is based upon cooperation among the nervous, endocrinal and immune systems.

This constancy that is maintained within the internal environment of our bodies is called "homeostasis" and, in effect, is maintained by the cooperation among our systems and the regulating mechanism of our individual organs.

"All vital mechanisms, regardless of varied they may be, have only one objective; that objective consists solely of the preservation of the conditions of life within the internal environment of our bodies." (19th-century French physiologist Claude Bernard)

We need to maintain homeostasis if we are to continue to live. We get sick when our homeostasis is significantly disturbed, but we also have an automatic mechanism that works to maintain homeostasis (the feedback mechanism). This is called the "homeostasis mechanism" or "natural healing power".

The body can recover from illnesses if the degree of the homeostasis disturbance is within the limits of our natural healing power. If it exceeds these limits, the result is death. Natural healing power, in other words, is the power to prevent us from illness or to help us recover from illness.

A therapy using an electric field therapy apparatus works to enhance the natural healing power that maintains homeostasis within our bodies.

Figure 1.3-1 The function of an electric field therapy apparatus


1.3 Examples of the Electric Field Therapy Apparatus' Effects in Maintaining Homeostasis

According to the test, the changes in the maximum blood pressure of mature male and female rats subjected to daily 15-minute treatments with an electric field therapy apparatus (output voltage of 7,000V) over a 5-day period were seen. Rats with high blood pressure showed a decrease to normal pressure, and rats with normal pressure did not show any changes.

Unlike medication that has a single effect, electric field therapy apparatus treatments have the capacity to restore abnormal conditions to normal, and to maintain normal conditions, just as they serve to maintain homeostasis.

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