The role of transcranial electrostimulation in the treatment of psychosomatic disorders in industrial workers

Background. The prevalence of psychosomatic disorders (PD) is steadily increasing from year to year. Suffice it to mention that the appealability for the primary health care during the recent period increased from 20% to 40—49%. Various psychological, pharmacological and physical methods for the treatment of somatoform disorders have been developed. However, the physiothera-peutic methods for the management of psychosomatic disorders remain virtually unexplored. At the same time, the stress-limiting effects of transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) have been convincingly demonstrated. Aims. The objective of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of the treatment of psychosomatic disorders based on the application of transcranial electrostim-ulation. Material and methods. We evaluated during 4 months the general functional state (GFS) as well as the psychosomatic and vegetative status (VS) of the employees of the Scientific development and production enterprise «Splav» including 14 women and 14 men who complained of deterioration of health. All the participants of the study were divided into groups depending on their functional disorders. The patients in one of the groups underwent transcranial electrostimulation. The age of the patients ranged from 36 to 66 years. The mean age of the men and women was 56±1.4 and 48±2.2 years respectively. The study was designed to estimate GFS and VS based on the integral characteristics obtained with the use of the «Simona 111» hardware-software complex. The complaints of stressful conditions, deteriorated GFS, and psycho-somatic disorders were revealed in the relevant questionnaire studies. The participants of the study were divided into two groups: the main study group and the control group matched for the age and sex of their members. Those of the former group underwent relaxation procedures in the combination with transcranial elec-trostimulation whereas the control subjects were managed with the use of the relaxation procedures alone. Results. The workers comprising the group with the impaired functional indices and psychosomatic disorders were initially characterized by the mod-erate or high stress level with the poor general functional state. These parameters as well as the indicators of the vegetative status were significantly improved after the course of transcranial electrical stimulation. Specifically, the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system increased in comparison with the baseline level, the activity of the sympathetic nervous system decreased, and the manifestations of psychosomatic disorders became less pronounced. The authors maintain that these effects were due to the selec-tive activation of the stress-limiting mechanisms operating in the brain that caused normalization of the activity of the vegetative nervous system and the psycho-emotional state of the patients together with the improvement of their general functional condi-tion. Conclusion. This study has demonstrated that psychosomatic disorders are especially common among the industrial workers with the poor general functional state of the organism. The clinical data give evidence of the effectiveness of transcranial electrical stimulation for the correction of the functional state and psychosomatic disorders.