“We achieved success very quickly with physiotherapy and microcurrent therapy in the case of all those patients whose movements – arms, legs and gait – […] were small, close to the body and without large ranges of motion.” (Metag, 2020)

In this episode, you’ll hear the second part of the interview with physiotherapist Inge Metag on the topic of microcurrent in neurology. Inge Metag reports on a patient observation she carried out several years ago using microcurrent therapy on patients with Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

It is precisely this practical experience of working with frequency-specific microcurrent and neurological patients that provides valuable insight into the possibilities this offers for physiotherapy, naturopathic and medical practices. What are the indicators that provide a practitioner with information about the progress of such a treatment, and what might a microcurrent therapy programme look like in this context? These are the key questions addressed in this episode.

Patrick Walitschek: Hello, I’d like to warmly welcome you to a new podcast episode from LuXXaMed GmbH on the topics of ‘microcurrent frequency’, ‘frequency-specific microcurrent’ and ‘BCR therapy’ – whatever you choose to call it. My name is Patrick Walitschek and, as announced last week, in this episode I’ll be bringing you the second and final part of the interview with physiotherapist Inge Metag, focusing specifically on the application of microcurrent – from LuXXaMed and so on – in the field of neurology.

00:00:36
Patrick Walitschek: As a physiotherapist, Inge Metag once carried out a study – or rather, a case series – specifically involving patients with Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. One, two, three patients with restless legs syndrome and others were also included in this group, and Inge Metag is about to reveal how she went about it, what her strategy is, what her key approaches are, and how she treats neurological conditions. And I know – and I believe – that this is of particular interest to many practitioners, and that it’s certainly interesting for one or two patients as well. So I don’t want to keep you in suspense any longer. However, I’d very much like to make one important point:

00:01:22
Patrick Walitschek: Next week, of course, a new episode will be released, as is the weekly tradition. In this episode – which will be titled ‘Microcurrent Conversations’ – I’ve had a relatively long conversation – I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an interview – with the orthopaedic surgeon Dr Voracek, who has been many years – since 2000 – using microcurrent in his practice, as well as at a clinic in Prague and with the Czech Olympic team, and I had a thorough discussion with him about microcurrent: what are its distinctive features? Why does microcurrent work, and why does he use it on almost all his patients, both in Germany and in the Czech Republic? So be sure to make a note for next week: I was almost about to say ‘a really fascinating interview’. No, it’s a conversation – quite funny in parts, too – and I can definitely recommend it. But now let’s move on to the final part on the topic of ‘Microcurrent in Neurology’ with physiotherapist Inge Metag.

00:02:32
Patrick Walitschek: That’s always such a much-loved topic, as we’ve seen somewhere… or I remember, we actually ran a seminar on it together in Kassel once, and it was incredibly well attended – and I think you were there, and the topic of neurology was certainly the driving force behind it. That’s also very, very good. There are always loads and loads of questions, because naturally there are so many uncertainties. A client rang me yesterday evening, and it was actually about ‘Parkinson’s treatment’ as well. So I said: ‘Well, that’s perfect. I’ll definitely include that as a specific question in today’s podcast, of course.’ And yes, I’d like to continue along those lines now. A few years ago, you carried out a study – or rather, a patient observation – on the use of microcurrent in neurology; I believe the focus was on Parkinson’s. But perhaps you could say a little bit about that patient observation from your perspective?

00:03:32
Inge Metag: Well, the basis, of course, is once again collaboration with the treating doctor or doctors, as Parkinson’s is a very complex condition in terms of its presentation. For us at the time, it was particularly appealing to work within geriatrics – a field that treats a significant number of Parkinson’s patients – on issues relating to ‘medication management’ or, of course, from a physiotherapy perspective, ‘influencing the musculoskeletal system’. And, of course, back then we also looked at the main problems faced by suitable patients and the expectations they initially had regarding this inpatient stay. And the patients with whom we very quickly achieved success through physiotherapy—supported by microtherapy—were those whose movements, arms, legs and gait were very restricted, close to the body, without much range of motion or amplitude, and very unsteady.

00:04:48
Inge Metag: And without giving any thought to neurological programmes, we started there – initially with regeneration or very detoxifying programmes, so to speak, focusing on everything that was under tension, muscle shortening, to improve joint mobility, so that movements could once again be performed more confidently, with a greater range of motion and, of course, with greater distance from the body. And we made considerable progress in the two to three weeks they were in hospital. We always took into account the fact that these were elderly patients. That is, after all, what the word ‘geriatrics’ implies. And, of course, this treatment also incorporated necessary osteoarthritis programmes or measures designed to increase or decrease muscle tone. That’s where we can make a difference again. Yes, but not ‘just one programme with a standard electrode set-up’.

00:06:02
Patrick Walitschek: Right, okay, what would you do if someone asked you specifically – if someone said they now had a Parkinson’s patient – what would your approach be, or how would you assess the electrode system and programme selection for yourself in that moment? Are there any indicators that might be useful right now, if a user is listening and is thinking about how to structure their Parkinson’s treatment with the patient? Are there any indicators that guide your approach, where you’d say: ‘Right, in this case I’ll place the electrodes on the spine, or on the head, or so on’ – is that the case?

00:06:39
Inge Metag: Well, there’s always, of course, the question of what the patient’s main problem is. To be honest, one has to say that it’s very rare – though I wouldn’t want to generalise here – that, for example, the treatment has had an effect on the tremor. Resting tremor could not be influenced. Intention tremor occasionally, but it didn’t last very long. So, between one treatment and the next, the situation was actually back to how it was before the treatment. But these programmes, which we quite often began with regeneration, we actually carried out using the ‘classic whole-body application’ – that is, via the spine, the right and left halves of the body to the lymphatic system – as well as this ‘hand-to-hand application’.

00:07:36
Patrick Walitschek: Yes.

00:07:36
Inge Metag: And that served as an initial phase – for in-patient care, at least – lasting two or three weeks. On top of that came the individual local treatment. It wasn’t uncommon for a patient to say: “My left arm’s fine, but my right shoulder’s completely useless. It’s got even worse since I’ve had Parkinson’s.” And of course, that allowed us to observe the degenerative aspect as well and influence it.

00:08:04
Patrick Walitschek: Right, so you’d switch back and forth, so to speak, between the whole-body and local settings?

00:08:10
Inge Metag: Yes.

00:08:10
Patrick Walitschek: Now, you also had – in this study, there were also – let’s put it this way – a few MS patients who’d slipped in. What were they like there, or to put it another way: how does the approach with microcurrent differ for MS compared to Parkinson’s? Is it different for you, or do you actually structure the treatment strategy in the same way?

00:08:35
Inge Metag: Well, our experience with MS patients – and again, with very cooperative neurologists – actually points to one objective: namely, to prevent new inflammatory foci from becoming active wherever possible. This means that we’ve been informed via imaging where the MS lesions are located – in the brain, the spinal cord or both regions – and then the standard approach has been to start with the inflammation programme, whereby for the head we’ve set up a ‘forehead-occipital’ configuration, and for the spine “from the cervical spine down to the lumbar spine” or – if there were lesions in both regions – then “head and spine”, each with the aforementioned circuit, plus the “lymphatic circuits” on both sides of the body.

00:09:33
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, okay. And what would you say was the most striking experience for you during the study, when you saw the results in the evaluation? I mean, you gain experience with the effects of microcurrent every day, but when you actually went through the analysis of the data – there were around 80 participants in total, I believe?

00:09:53
Inge Metag: Yes. That’s right, there were 99 in total if you include the Restless Legs participants.

00:09:59
Patrick Walitschek: Ah, right. Yes, that’s right, exactly. What would you say, in summary, that you’ve taken away from the study – not just in relation to the effects of microcurrent, but also more generally in terms of ‘microcurrent and neurology’, if you were to combine those two terms: Is there a conclusion you’d draw from the whole thing?

00:10:17
Inge Metag: One thing that’s certainly clear is that you can achieve a great deal with microcurrent: that was also noted very positively. The problem has always been that both Parkinson’s and MS are systemic conditions, with which you can never say: ‘Right, they’re cured now’. That means – and I think I’ve described it this way too – that once treatment has begun, it must be continued. And it is both interesting and sad, I would say, that particularly in the case of Parkinson’s patients, who were certainly able to put aside the idea of using a wheelchair, perhaps even for quite long distances, and who had regained the ability to walk – whether with a rollator or walking sticks – were then, in their home care setting, relatively quickly returned to a wheelchair.

00:11:24
Inge Metag: Even within their personal circles, there wasn’t always a sense of joy that certain things had stabilised again; rather, the attitude tended to be: ‘Yes, that’s all well and good, it was effective treatment, but now the main thing is that nothing hurts and we’ll go back to doing everything as we did before’. In other words, a limited range of activity, too much effort involved in getting to outpatient treatment – and that’s precisely the crux of the matter: that what had been started could not be continued.

00:12:00
Patrick Walitschek: Yes.

00:12:00
Inge Metag: It was different for MS patients in that they were, for the most part, younger and therefore didn’t mind the travel involved. They fall into the category – I’ve looked at the figures again – of having treatment once a week. Statistically speaking, that works out at around 38 sessions a year – as holidays or other reasons can sometimes get in the way – and they feel so well looked after that they wouldn’t want to miss a session, partly because their medication intake has decreased, and partly because symptoms have receded to such an extent that they – and this was, of course, a decisive factor for us – they were able to continue managing their daily lives, which for most of them consisted of the demands of their jobs.

00:12:52
Patrick Walitschek: Okay, well, that’s obviously a huge step forward or a massive improvement for the patients, regardless of the diagnosis itself, isn’t it. And as for restless legs: I think there were three or four, if I’m remembering correctly…? I can’t quite recall the exact number now…

00:13:11
Inge Metag: There were a few more, and we treated them on a trial basis… if patients told us they’d actually tried a lot, or – according to their doctors – everything, then we’d tackle the issue of autonomic balance, and for those patients, this really brought about something they’d never have believed possible: namely, the restoration of the night’s sleep they’d previously lost.

00:13:42
Patrick Walitschek: Okay.

00:13:43
Inge Metag: Our approach to autonomic balance involved applying pressure to the right and left of the spine, extending down to the soles of the feet on both sides, and very often, after just one or two treatments, patients would say as they got off the treatment table: “I can’t describe it. It feels different. It’s doing me good.”

00:14:09
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, okay.

00:14:10
Inge Metag: But also – and we have to be realistic here – for anything that isn’t subject to a definitive cure, we should make it clear to the patient at a relatively early stage that this is a long-term treatment. In most cases, you can easily move from initially shorter intervals – two to three times a week – to what I’d call the maintenance dose, which is ‘once a week’. You can also take a three- or four-week holiday, but it’s always a matter of access; it’s a regulatory and restorative process that becomes necessary time and again in the event of a chronic deficit.

00:14:52
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, yes, I see, yes. Right, well. But nevertheless, I mean, what other alternatives are there for patients? Usually, that would mean drug-based therapies, which may well bring with them side effects and so on. As I said, that’s always the underlying question of alternatives.

00:15:09
Inge Metag: The alternative is that they fall back into old patterns or are pushed back into them. Or, as I’ve already said, they might say: ‘I’d really love to make progress, but there’s no provider in my immediate area and the effort involved in getting to the practice is simply too much’. Yes, but it was nice while it lasted; it’s sad, but unfortunately that’s the reality.

00:15:34
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, yes, yes. Very good, very good. How do you think the future will unfold in the field of microcurrent therapy? Do you think it will continue, how shall I put it, its triumphant advance? Or what would be, let’s say, your hopes in this regard generally?

00:15:57
Inge Metag: My hopes are actually to lift this whole field of electrotherapy a little out of its current state – and I’m not going too far out on a limb when I say – out of its old rut, out of the familiar. There are many approaches to working on the human body using electricity, small currents – in other words, electrotherapy. And I have a version of a device which, for me, is ideal for delivering microcurrents about 80 per cent of the time, and perhaps 10 per cent of the time for treating peripheral paralysis – where you do have to work exponentially at the start, but can then switch to microcurrent therapy as treatment progresses. And if – as is the case where I come from – you don’t leave competitive sport out of the equation, then for those who are injured or have had an accident, there are specific programmes for muscle rehabilitation. For me, that would be the device of the future, but it’s already clear from this: 80 per cent microcurrent.

00:17:09
Patrick Walitschek: Yes. Very interesting. Very good. Yes, brilliant. So, at least as far as the list of questions I’d roughly put together is concerned, we’ve already covered everything in this podcast. If you have anything else you’d like to say to microcurrent users – and, of course, to any patients who might be listening to this podcast – a message you’d like to share…

00:17:39
Inge Metag: Well, I’d certainly like to signal to those responsible for passing on the full scope of electrotherapy to the next generation of professionals, in other words, to trainees, that we should be focusing much more on this field, so that, from an early stage as far as those starting out in the profession are concerned, much more curiosity is sparked, and so that, through further training or whatever else we can offer, this therapy becomes part of their professional identity. I also find it rather embarrassing, in some circumstances, when patients who are very interested – and who have learnt about microcurrent therapy through publications – are told in a practice: “No, we can’t use electricity or we don’t do that” or “We don’t have that machine”: that’s actually something that really shouldn’t happen these days.

00:18:32
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, yes, absolutely, I see it exactly the same way. Perfect! Those are wonderful closing remarks. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for taking the time for this interview. And yes, you were just about to say something?

00:18:51
Inge Metag: Yes, it’s also my aim – whatever the means – and I think this podcast is the perfect way to keep driving this message home: so much has already been achieved. The company has already organised and developed so much, has never let up, and yet there are still many people who need to be made aware of this cause.

00:19:14
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, that’s true. It’s definitely a daily struggle. Do you listen to podcasts yourself in your spare time?

00:19:23
Inge Metag: It really depends: when I do take the time for it, I enjoy it. I’ve got a team of 60 people at the moment, and my boss is also busy with the circumstances – well, it’s not for nothing that we’ve got Covid. And let’s put it this way: I’m just glad if I get through the day okay, and then my switch-off mechanism kicks in all by itself. And if all else fails, I treat myself to a bit of stimulation and have a full-body massage.

00:19:51
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, perfect! Very good.

00:19:54
Inge Metag: Why not!

00:19:55
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, of course, that works – I do it too.

00:19:58
Inge Metag: You’ve got to be able to picture yourself in it too. Exactly.

00:20:00
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, yes, absolutely. I’ve got one at home too, of course. And when I do have time – as the saying goes, the cobbler’s children have no shoes – but every now and then I do treat myself to it, lying on the sofa, although I tend to go for ‘regeneration’ or ‘autonomic balance’ rather than ‘stimulation’, it works brilliantly. But it’s always a bit like exercise: I do have to give myself a nudge to actually get round to doing it.

00:20:31
Inge Metag: Yes, yes. But Patrick, you know: when you’ve had a busy day, at some point your mind signals that it’s time to switch off!

00:20:39
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, yes.

00:20:39
Inge Metag: Yes. It’s exercise, of course. We’ve got one – I’d love to show it to you, as you haven’t seen any of this yet – we’ve got a state-of-the-art training therapy programme.

00:20:49
Patrick Walitschek: Yes.

00:20:49
Inge Metag: It’s an extension to our practice. Yes, it wasn’t there back then when you… it was still under construction. I just need to walk a few metres from my office, but when my mind goes blank, well, I don’t think I need to finish that sentence.

00:21:05
Patrick Walitschek: Yes, exactly. Yes, yes, exactly. Perfect!

00:21:07
Inge Metag: Yes.

00:21:07
Patrick Walitschek: Great. Well, thank you once again from the bottom of my heart for the interview!

00:21:16
Inge Metag: You’re welcome.

00:21:16
Patrick Walitschek: And yes, I’m looking forward to it. I don’t yet know how things will pan out in terms of organising events. There were a few seminars planned for this year, but none of them took place.

00:21:28
Inge Metag: Yes, it’s a shame, really.

00:21:29
Patrick Walitschek: A real shame! I’m not sure whether we’ll be holding any in-person seminars this year either. I’ve got a small in-person seminar in November in Berchtesgaden with alternative practitioner Burkhard Hock. But there are only 15 people attending.

00:21:42
Inge Metag: Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s quite a small group; as for whether we’ll hold a larger seminar in Kassel this year: we’ll have to see how the restrictions develop regarding gatherings of people and so on. We might be planning an online seminar; we’ll have to see. But I think that’s a good option, given the situation, of course. Thank you very much, Inge, for taking the time to speak with us. The closing remarks have taken a bit longer than usual, as is often the case in real life, so to speak. Yes, thank you very much! I’m looking forward to seeing you again very, very soon, and to us running training courses together again at some point. So I’ll just say: thank you very much and see you soon!

00:22:22
Inge Metag: I’d also like to thank you for your interest and hope that we can take many things much further than they already are at the moment. See you soon!

00:22:31
Patrick Walitschek: See you soon!