This post is a note on resolving an issue I realized I had created almost a few minutes after I had pressed the Publish Button on the most recent post I wrote about using a pulse massager to possibly let the growth plate in still growing adolescences increase in their longitudinal growth. The post was entitled Using An Electrical Pulse Massager Physiotherapy Device To Increase Longitudinal Growth In Vivo For Open Growth Plates (Big Breakthrough)

I realized that I had made a huge mistake in not realizing that when the term frequency, or wavelength, or Herts, or Amplitude, or Intensity, there is actually almost two meanings for these things, since what I was talking about and what the Patent on Non-Invasive In Vivo Stimulation of the Growth Plates Using Capacitative Electrical Fields was talking about were two different things.

The Abstract of the Patent…

Epiphyseal growth plate stimulation in the bone of a living body is achieved by applying electrodes non-invasively to a body and supplying to said electrodes an AC signal in the range of about 2.5 to 15 volts peak-to-peak at a frequency of about 20-100 KHz.

What I realized was that what Brighton was suggesting to do was release an AC signal, and that is not what the TENS or EMS Pulse massager was doing. First I reference the Wikipedia article on Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Theory.

The Pulse Massagers that I was talking about seemed to be not releasing an AC electrical signal, but a DC signal but in a specific pattern which mimicked what a impulse function would look like. I was definitely wrong before.

There is a picture below comparing the differences between an AC Current, a DC Current, and a Pulsed Electrical Current…

Note how while the AC (or alternating current) is moving in a sinusoidal way, the Pulsating Current does not, but moves in a repeating pattern which does not drop below the Applied Current at 0.

This is my way of trying to explain the problem with my logic in the last post using an Electrical Engineering perspective. The x-y graph on the left represent the applied current over time where the x axis represents time and the y axis if for current.

The reason that the current can even go into the negatives is because when you are supplying AC Current, the electrons that are flowing down the conducting material, something like copper or iron, actually switches directions.

Based on mathematical conventions, the flow of electrons/electrical charge (aka Current) is defined by a mathematical term known as a vector, which has both a magnitude and a direction. Since the concept of current has to be defined by not only a magnitude, but also direction, when you see a ‘negative current’ that means that the direction of the flow of electrons (aka Current) is going in the opposite direction.

However I wanted to make some extremely accurate distinctions between 1. E&M Fields and Waves, 2. what Brighton is actually proposing in the patent, and 3. what I had proposed which was a mistake.

1. Elementary Electrodynamics Theory

Our bodies when broken down as much as possible turns out to be a bunch of molecules. Those molecules broken down even further through snapping the covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bones turns into atoms. Almost all atoms have at least 1 electron, and the reason that any type of chemical reaction is even possible is due to the exchange of electrons between element atoms which either have too much or too little electrons. Based on Quantum Theory the electron itself has both the properties of a particle and a wave. We can actually use mathematical tools used to describe waves to describe the behavior and movements of electrons.

What this implies is that if we really wanted to, we could say that everything has a sort of sinusoidal electrical wave of field that is generated from it. We could say that every single object does emit some type of alternating electro-magnetic signal, which means that every single object would have some type of electrical signal going through it already.

The way that all electromagnetic waves move is in a sinusoidal way, from the ones with the lowest frequency and biggest wavelength like the radio waves to gamma rays. Like the electromagnetic waves, our bodies themselves emit electromagnetic waves is a sinusoidal, alternating pattern.

However that doesn’t help us on differentiating what Brighton is talking about and what I was talking about.

2. What Brighton is actually proposing in the patent

Brighton is talking about using a function generator to send a electrical current that is of the alternating current type through the metal electrode pad.

When he talks about frequency, he is referring to how many times the flow of electrical charges or electrons reverse themselves and them reverse themselves back. The device that he reference in the patent was a

From the patent he writes the following under the section entitled DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT….

FIG. 1 shows a signal frequency generator 10 which generates an AC stimulation signal having a frequency within the range of about 20-100 KHz. The waveform of the AC stimulation signal is preferably an unmodulated symmetrical sine wave having a peak-to-peak amplitude within the range of about 2.5-15 volts peak-to-peak and more preferably within the range of about 5-10 volts peak-to-peak. The frequency generator 10 can be a Wave Tech Model 148 Function Generator

3. What I had proposed which was a mistake. 

I was proposing that we use one of those TENS Pulse Massagers with the electrode pads to do the same job as the patent. They are not the same. The electrical signal that is being sent is different.

Pulse electrical signals are also measured in intensity and frequency, but the frequency is the number of impulse signals that the electrical signal sees every second. When a TENS device says that it can get upwards of 100 Hz it means that within a 1 second time frame, the electrical current was increased to a certain intensity 100 times and then decreased as well.

When you press the button to increase or decrease the Intensity, you are telling the device to increase the amplitude of the impulse signal of the electric current. The signal becomes stronger, and when graphed out in terms of current vs. time, the amplitude of the current function will multiply by a certain factor.

So I was talking about pulsed electrical signals and he was talking about alternating electrical signals, two completely different things.

Currently I have no idea what the effect of using one of those pulse massagers would be if it was applied to the skin close to the growth plate of kids who are still growing.

Would the pulse electrical signals have a similar effect as the AC signals proposed by brighton? I am not sure

Me as the amateur researcher made the mistake in thinking that a pulse massager and a function generator was the same thing.

The actual device that the Ivy League Ph. D & M.D. Orthopaedic Surgeon is suggesting is actually a Function Generator, and his proposed one was one from back in the mid 1980s. It was called a Wave Tech Model 148 Function Generator. For more information on Wave Tech, (aka Wave Tek) the company and what happened, Click Here.

You can find more information about the cost of function generators on Amazon by Click Here. Some of the models are expensive but any of the devices that can just get 60 KHz and in the range of 5-10 Volts would be good enough possibly stimulate the epiphyseal growth plates.