A Preliminary Study Of Electrotherapy And Pain Assessment System Based On C8051F020

Neck and shoulder periarthritis are common pain disorders. In recent years, itsincidence is increasing and trends to the younger age, therefore, the prevention,standardized treatment and efficacy assessment for it are becoming very important.Aiming at the single treatment and the design separation between treatment andassessment in electrotherapy equipment, a kind of system which includinglow-intermediate frequency treatment and efficacy evaluation was developed. TakingC8051F020microcontroller as the core, combining with the advantages ofintermediate-low frequency electrical stimulation and the advantages of Pressure PainThreshold (PPT) for pain assessment, by the circuit design and software programming,this system generated waveforms with different stimulating effect, realized the randomswitch of therapeutic parameters, overcame the adaptability of the body and increasedthe efficacy. The precise acquisition and display of the PPT can achieve the contrast ofPPT before and after the electrical stimulation for assessment to select the appropriatemode of treatment.First, the principle of alleviating pains using intermediate-low frequency currentand the often used method for pain assessment were interpreted. Then the stimuluswaveforms, pulse width, frequency, and intensity of the stimulation were analyzed bysynthesis and design specifications of the system parameters were fixed on. Next, thehardware design and software design of the system were introduced detailedly. Thesystem hardware mainly included the C8051F020controlled circuit, the power supplycircuit, the boost circuit, the intermediate and low frequency stimulation circuit, thevoltage-controlled bi-directional constant-current circuit, the PPT acquisition circuit, theliquid crystal display circuit, the keyboard circuit and so on. As to the software system,the program was written with C language in the development environment of KeiluVision4, main functions including the stimulus waveform generation, key inputreception and parameter display, and the acquisition, conversion, processing, dynamicdisplay of PPT.Experiment results showed that maximum error between measured value and thenominal value of evaluation part was0.294N. The stimulus waveform, duty ratio,frequency, current intensity and other parameters of the system output were adjustable and reached the expected requirements. It provided a reliable technical support for thetreatment and curative pain assessment.