History of Neurostimulation

Medical Care For Millennia

Ancient Egyptians used electric eels to “shock” people back to health – probably the earliest known tie between medical treatment and what is now called electrostimulation or neurostimulation. Much later, in the 1800s, electricity delivered by wires was a new phenomenon and medical care in the U.S. was unregulated. Doctors, healers and common crooks were making wild health claims based on electrical stimulation of various parts of the body.

After World War II, the U.S. medical field was flooded with research opportunities. Research money poured into pharmaceuticals, possibly in part because of the desire to move medicine away from the unregulated and wild claims made in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The U.S. medical paradigm of the 20th century was built around the chemical and surgical management of human illness and health. (For millennia, by contrast, Chinese medicine has focused on acupuncture and herbal remedies.)

In the Soviet Union, medical research included microcurrent. In the 1970s, a team of doctors and scientists, based at Sochi University, developed treatment that was energy efficient, useful for many health issues, portable and non-invasive.

At the same time, some scientists in the West, notably Robert O. Becker, MD, a professor with State University of New York and researcher at the VA Hospital in Syracuse, were conducting research on the body’s response to electrical currents. Becker wrote the seminal book about the topic in 1985, The Body Electric. Among those in the West willing to explore options other than the pharmaceutical-chemical track of U.S. medicine, it is considered foundational to understanding the use of electricity to heal the body.

Avazzia and Microcurrent Now

Avazzia takes the neurostimulation technology of the past and brings it into the 21st century. Using proprietary software and a high-performance microcomputer chip, different microcurrent wave forms and interactive output characteristics, Avazzia products are to the old-fashioned devices what digital music is to the Victrola. Tim Smith, who developed Avazzia BEST technology, previously spent a career with Texas Instruments where his innovations included technology still used in space flight, military jets, telecommunications and transportation.

What is Avazzia BEST Technology?

Avazzia BEST (Bio-Electric Stimulation Technology) devices were developed as simple, easy-to-use, hand-held devices for non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive pain relief.

BEST devices produce microcurrent impulses, transmitted through the skin to interface with the body’s internal peripheral nervous system for the purpose of therapeutic intervention. BEST devices react to the body’s response to the microcurrent stimulus. With each response, the electrical properties of the tissue change. The device detects changes and responds, resulting in the very next signal being modified. This is possible because Avazzia BEST products use a unique analog output controlled by high-speed microprocessors, which establish a “cybernetic loop” between the device and the body’s tissue.

The Avazzia BEST™ system’s cybernetic loop is comprised of a high speed microprocessor which controls and monitors a unique analog output circuit which produces the pulsed, bi-phasic, high-voltage, damped sinusoidal waveform.

The microprocessor performs mathematical algorithms to manage and control the analog output microcurrent signals.

An electrical feedback loop is established between the analog output circuit and the tissue being treated. With each applied stimulus, the electrical properties of the tissue changes and therefore the analog output is changed.

The microprocessor measures the changes in the analog signal and provides reaction data to the user. Professional models with digital displays provide numeric readings of tissue reaction response data. Other Avazzia devices also indicate D or Z in some modes. Click here for more information about reaction data readings IR, OR, D and Z.

The three charts show Avazzia waveforms when (1) electrode is not on tissue, (2) when first placed on tissue and (3) as treatment continues.

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