The Effect of Multipath Current Distribution on NMES-Induced Torque Production

An abstract of a study by Bremner and Holcomb comparing peak torque production during neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES)-induced contractions of the quadriceps while using multipath-NMES and conventional-NMES devices, and similar electrode configurations is presented. Based on their results, it does not appear that the novel multipath current distribution method positively impacts NMES-induced peak torque production. Previous studies have observed greater peak torque production when using the multipath-NMES device. They believe that it is likely that a systematic difference in electrode configurations was a contributing factor to the results of earlier studies, since they did not observe a significant difference while using similar electrode configurations across conditions.