ABSTRACT
It is interesting to note that among the chapters of this section there are seven topics each of which represent a physical form of energy that is employed to enhance wound healing. The delivery of electrical current into recalcitrant wounds for the purpose of accelerating tissue repair is not new. Reports from the seventeenth and twentieth centuries describe the application of electro-statically charged gold leaf to skin lesions associated with smallpox (1) and wounds of various etiologies, however, findings from these studies are inconclusive (2–7). In 1850, the first report of the use of electrical stimulation (ES) to treat bone fractures was published (8). More recent research related to the use of ES to augment bone repair (9,10) has lead to FDA approved electromagnetic devices that are labeled for treatment of nonunion and delayed union fractures (11,12). Still other investigators have demonstrated that ES augments the healing and increases the breaking strength of severed tendons (13,14). Since the mid-1960s much research has been directed at evaluating the effects of ES on healing of chronic wounds, that unlike acute wounds are wounds that do not heal spontaneously within a predictable time frame and are frequently resistant to many standard treatment procedures.
