Introduction: 
Transcutaneous
 Electrical
 Nerve 
Stimulation (TENS) has been shown to be successful in 
treating acute as well as chronic pain. But, it has been 
greatly underused especially for acute pain. Current 
prospective audit was conducted to evaluate the efficacy 
of TENS in acute and chronic pain conditions and to 
evaluate its efficacy on various components of pain.  
Method: Fifty patients suffering from acute and chronic 
pain were included in the audit. All the parameters of 
TENS were set and intensity kept at minimum, which was 
then increased gradually to maximum tolerability. 
Intermittent therapy was given for all but postsurgical 
pain, for which continuous therapy was used.  
Result: Pain relief was better after the treatment in both 
the groups (p<0.001), but was found to be even better in 
acute pain group (p<0.001). Improvement in limitation of 
movements, mood and capacity to work was found to be 
better in chronic pain patients, whereas greater reduction 
in the need for other analgesics was observed in patients 
with acute pain. The best results in both groups were 
obtained at TENS frequency of 100 Hz and pulse rate of 
10 waves/seconds. The effect of TENS on sympathetic 
system was not very impressive.

Conclusion: TENS resulted in best pain relief with 
frequency of 100Hz and pulse rate of 10 waves/sec. TENS 
resulted in better pain relief, reduction in duration of pain, 
and requirement of other conventional analgesics in acute 
compared to chronic pain patients hence it should be 
utilized for acute pain conditions more often.