The study was undertaken by a university degree student at Canterbury Christ Church University College in association with the Department of Orthopaedics at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital Canterbury.  The Department of Physiotherapy was also involved.

Following ethical approval from the local Hospital Ethics Committee a number of patients were selected at random for the study.  All the patients recruited had a diagnosis OA of the knee and had been suffering for a period of longer than one year. The patients were in a similar age range being between 55 years and 70 years old.

A double blind method was used.  This means that neither the patients nor the researcher were aware whether they were using a MicroDoctor that was delivering the treatment or an identical looking unit that was not.  Because patients do not feel the treatments they could not guess whether they were given a working unit or not.  They looked and acted in an identical manner. Therefore, some patients would receive a placebo treatment and act as the control group.

A person not in contact with the patients allocated units to each patient.  In this way when the results were given to the researcher by the patients he was not aware if the patients had had treatment or not.

Each patient was given a questionnaire to complete at the beginning of the study and then during the treatment period and at its completion.  Simple questions were asked such as the levels of pain, swelling and how much mobility the patient had.  Each patient used the MicroDoctor every day for two weeks.

Because this was a pilot study a relatively small number patients were recruited to the study.  If a good result was shown a bigger study could be undertaken in the future.

THE RESULTS

Fifteen patients were recruited initially with a further fifteen in another study that mirrored the first.  Of the first fifteen patients seven had the placebo treatment and eight had the MicroDoctor® micro-current treatment.  Of the second group of patients seven had the micro-current and eight had the placebo.  Therefore, in total fifteen patients received the dummy (placebo) treatment and fifteen patients received the 'proper' treatment.

From the fifteen patients that received the dummy placebo treatment twelve of the patients (80%) reported no significant changes in their symptoms in terms of pain, swelling or their mobility.

From the fifteen patients that received the micro-current treatment eleven (73.%) reported that they had noticed a significant improvement in their symptoms and found that they were in less discomfort and were as result more mobile.

WHAT DOES THIS TELL US?

Firstly, from a scientific perspective the method used was good in that the patients did not know whether their MicroDoctor® was delivering the treatment or not.  Therefore, when a result is reported by a patient positive or negative we can eliminated the possibility that the patients was just saying it was better because they knew they were involved in a study. 

The results using  MicroDoctor® that did deliver micro-current do show a significant improvement in comparison to those patients how did not have the treatment.   However, it must be noted that this was a study involving a small number of patients and therefore draw any clear conclusion a greater number of patients need to be done.

This study does show that MicroDoctor® may have the great potential to relieve the symptoms such a joint pain and swelling that reduces patient's mobility.

This treatment is not designed as a pain reliever it is designed to reduce swelling, promote normal cellular equilibrium and therefore this reduces the level of the patient's discomfort.  As they become more mobile so they feel better.

This study is currently being prepared and written for publication