Effect of Functional Electrical Stimulation on Erectile Dysfunction in Post –Stroke Survivors- A Randomized Cinical Control Trail

Author(s): Gowrishankar Potturi, Krishna Reddy Vajrala, Anjali Agarwal

Background: Stroke often affect sexual health in a negative way. The common sexual dysfunction amongst stroke survivors are decreased libido, impaired erectile and ejaculatory functions, decreased vaginal lubrications, impaired ego, self-esteem, and depression.

Objective: To find the effectiveness of Functional electrical stimulation on improving erectile function in Post-stroke patients.

Methods: It is a single - blinded randomized controlled trail, 486 hemiplegic patients from a 1st stroke admitted into the Hospital were screened for the study of whom 180 patients full filled the inclusion criteria and were randomly divided into two groups. 120 patients completed the study. Functional electrical stimulation group was given functional electrical stimulation, for a period of 4 weeks with 4 sessions per week with 15 min each session. After the intervention, the patients were trained for pelvic floor and home exercises. Conventional Physiotherapy group was given pelvic floor and home exercises. The erectile dysfunction was measured by International Index of Erectile Function and erectile function was measured by erectile hardness.

Results: The mean of differences between Preintervention and postintervention IIEF in FES group is 8.85 SD +/-3.16 and that of Conventional Physio. group is 5.13 SD +/- 3.92. With‘t’ value 4.53, the test is significant at p<0.05, which indicates the results are statistically significant. The mean of differences between Preintervention and postintervention EHS in FES group is 1.63 SD +/-1.28 and that of Conventional Physio. group is 0.77 SD +/- 0.87. With‘t’ value 4.34, the test is significant at p<0.05, which indicates the results are statistically significant. The magnitude of the experiment effect revealed large effect (Cohen’s d >0.7).

Conclusion: We conc