Electrical Stimulation On Denervated Muscle: Bone Structural Changes And Correlation Between Muscle Contraction And Bone Growth

3D modelling techniques are used to analyse bone density changes in paraplegic subjects undergoing electrical stimulation treatment. The method is based on the acquisition of high resolution Spiral CT scans from patients who have long-term flaccid paraplegia and the use of special image processing tools allowing tissue discriminations and segmentation. The bone mineral density is measured in different regions on the femur to monitor the direct structural changes induced by the current flow. Indirect effects from the electrical stimulation treatment on the bone density are also evaluated measuring the changes in bone mineral density on the patella. Indeed an increase of density in this region can only be assigned to the mechanical force applied through the induced quadriceps contraction.The quantitative measurement on the femur show that induced current flow and the muscle contraction either don't have any valuable effects on the femur density or those changes are too small to be measured in such big volume. On the other hand the losses of mineral density in the patella are sensibly diminished in subjects undergoing FES treatment suggesting a beneficial effect produced by the contraction activity generated during the stimulation treatment.The result demonstrates a correlation between electrical stimulation treatment and structural bone changes.