Abstract: A muscle stimulation system which stimulates muscles with electrical pulses supplied to electrodes applied to the skin overlying the muscle comprises a system controller and one or more personally portable stimulator units, each provided with electrodes. The system controller stores data relating to the characteristics of pulses to be applied to the muscle e.g. Trophic or functional or a combination thereof, and is adapted to down-load this data to a personal stimulator unit either by an infra-red link or by programming a programmable memory module which is then connected into the stimulator unit. The electrodes are applied to the skin of the patient and supplied with the pulses programmed into the stimulator unit, the stimulator unit being carried by the patient. The system controller may be adapted to be controlled by a personal computer and may also be provided with its own muscle stimulator.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed for the electrotrophic stimulation of muscle, that is, stimulation using pulses trains onto which information which will cause long-term functional and/or structural changes in the muscle tissue. This information is coded onto the interval between successive pulses of the series. Also disclosed is a method and apparatus for acquiring trophic data from motor unit action potential series.