Chronic back pain could be beaten by a nerve-stimulating implant thinner than a matchstick. The wireless device, which has been approved for use in the UK, is injected into the target area through a needle in a ten-minute procedure and works by ‘scrambling’ nerve signals to the brain.
In a trial of 11 patients with low-back pain, all experienced a decrease in overall pain levels.
The Stimwave Freedom implant has been hailed by pain experts as a step forward from other more cumbersome spinal-cord stimulator (SCS) devices used to treat chronic pain, as they require pacemaker-sized implants beneath the skin and wires attached to external boxes.
