The Shape of Pain Relief: Geometric electrode device enhances chronic pain therapy

A team of undergraduate biomedical engineers has developed a new electrode patch to speed up the delivery of Scrambler Therapy, an emerging electrical stimulation therapy for chronic pain.

The students presented their project on April 28 at the Whiting School of Engineering’s Design Day—an annual event showcasing students’ innovation and ability to translate theoretical knowledge into real-world solutions.

For the millions of Americans living with chronic pain, many frontline treatments such as medication and physical therapy fail to provide relief. Scrambler Therapy offers an alternative: electrodes are placed above and below where the patient is experiencing pain to reduce overactivation of nerve fibers. Signals from the areas that are not experiencing pain are transferred to the areas that are experiencing pain. This “scrambling” of pain signals acts like a brain reset that helps reduce chronic pain.

Correctly placing those electrodes is not always easy, and a major drawback of this therapy is the time and skill required to identify where the electrodes should be placed for the patient to feel pain relief. The process often involves considerable trial and error for both the clinician and patient.

“Up to 33% of the total session time can be wasted on simply placing and adjusting electrodes, limiting the pain relief a patient can experience after one session,” said Alp Demirtas, team co-lead and biomedical engineering senior. “Patients treated by clinicians who are newer to Scrambler Therapy report twice the pain level of patients treated by more experienced clinicians.”

The team’s solution, called StarSwitch, allows clinicians to choose an initial stimulation site and adjust its location without removing the patch.

“The novelty of StarSwitch is the geometry of the patch, electrical signal-switching mechanism, and the connection component that makes it clear to clinicians how to place the electrode and if it is working,” said team member Prisha Rathi, a biomedical engineering junior.

The patch reduces the time it takes to switch between electrode stimulation sites from 1-2 minutes to half a second, so the clinician can quickly determine the most effective placement for pain relief. Their innovation also has the potential to be applied to other electrical therapy tools such as the Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) device, which a patient can get over the counter and use at home.

The team’s clinical mentor Mahya Faghih, a physician in the Johns Hopkins Division of Gastroenterology, helped the team understand the physiology behind Scrambler Therapy, and connected them with a network of clinicians treating chronic pain. The students were able to shadow treatment sessions with patients to see first-hand the clinical needs their device could address.

“Dr. Faghih established a welcoming environment for our teammates to ask questions and learn without feeling judged, and her constant enthusiasm for our progress inspires us to push our project forward with confidence,” said Demirtas.

The team also includes co-lead Shreya Tiwari, and team members Ethan Abelev, Philip Golczak, Sophia Hibner, Ahn Litwiller, and Sarah Parashar. Their faculty mentor is Michelle Zwernemann, associate professor of the practice in biomedical engineering.