How to we test for denervated muscle? As we will see in this article, a number of conditions can lead to denervation. Sometimes the extent of this denervation is hard to establish with equipment commonly available to the therapist. Perhaps the therapist tried “conventional” neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) and could not produce a muscle contraction even with quite high intensity settings. Hence denervation was suspected, but without really being able to determine it’s extent.
The RISE stimulator provides a handy protocol that allows the presence and extent of denervation to be established and monitored over time. This article describes the process. First lets review some information on what exactly causes denervation, it’s consequences and the benefits of electrotherapy. We can then describe how the RISE unit can give is a denervation “benchmark”.

Electrotherapy for lower motor neuron lesions is not well understood by clinicians but we have many users benefiting from home use of the Stimulator RISE to combat the consequences of muscle denervation.