Emsculpt Neo and Stroke Rehabilitation: Exploring Advanced Possibilities for Recovery
- Dylan Golden, MA
- Jan 5
- 9 min read
Updated: Jan 7
Stroke recovery is a long, complex, and often challenging journey for survivors and family members. For many people who have a stroke, regaining strength, mobility, functional independence, and muscle mass can require months--sometimes years-- of targeted rehabilitation consisting of multiple recovery approaches, like physical and occupational therapy, speech therapy, and many other modalities. However, regaining proper muscle strength and muscle mass is often hardest and is a key biomarker for a healthy lifespan later in life, which makes muscle retention and growth processes especially important for older adults who experience a stroke.
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To further address this multi-dimensional recovery process, stroke patients and their clinicians are increasingly turning to non-invasive, cutting-edge technologies like Emsculpt Neo. Originally developed for body composition and body contouring benefits, Emsculpt Neo’s passive muscle-building potential has resonated with clinicians worldwide, prompting them to explore its advanced muscle stimulation capabilities in post-stroke recovery. In this blog post, we’ll explore the potential benefits of Emsculpt Neo as an adjunctive and supplemental therapy for stroke rehabilitation and recovery.
Understanding Strokes
Blood flow is the lifeline of our brains and bodies, and sometimes blood flow is blocked or disrupted—leading to decreased oxygen, blood, and essential nutrients the brain needs to function. This process, in which blood flow to the brain and body decreases, is what causes a stroke. Strokes can disrupt critical blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, leading to brain cell death, which is a leading driver of the symptoms one may experience after a stroke.
Strokes are medical emergencies that require immediate hospitalization, and the sooner one is treated for a stroke, the better. Time is essential, as saving brain cells means the possibility of saving a life and limiting the chance of permanent disability due to brain cell death. Your local emergency department knows exactly how to treat strokes, and they will treat stroke patients immediately, as strokes are time-sensitive conditions. The Emergency Department will identify if the stroke is either ischemic (blocked artery) or hemorrhagic (bleeding) and determine follow-up steps such as clot-busting drugs, surgery to stop bleeding, and other life-saving interventions determined by these specialists.
Disclaimer: At Better Brain & Body, our facility serves patients seeking advanced rehabilitative care after stroke, following their visit(s) to a local emergency care department. If you or a family member experiences a stroke, please call 911, visit your local emergency room/department, and reach out to us afterward for rehabilitation.
Signs of a Stroke
Remember the acronym, BE-FAST or simply FAST. As Duke University outlines in their blog post, "Know the Signs of Stroke" BE-FAST is a widely known acronym and the main process in identifying a stroke in yourself or a loved one. Follow it when identifying a stroke and take the proper steps to receive emergency medical care for yourself or a loved one.
B - Balance: Is there immediately recognizable issues with balance and/or coordination?
E - Eyes: Is the individual experiencing immediate vision loss in one or both eyes with or without pain? Are they experiencing sudden blurred or double vision?
F - Face Drooping: Is the person experiencing face numbness or drooping? As Duke University's Debbe Geiger writes, you can ask the person to smile if you are with them at the time of a potential stroke and identify the F portion of this acronym.
A - Arm Weakness: Is there weakness or numbness in one or both arms? Can the individual raise both arms simultaneously or does one arm stay down?
S - Speech Difficulty: Look for slurred speech, inability to speak, or difficulty understanding the person? Ask them to repeat simple sentences like "The Leaf is Green".
T - Time to call 911: If the person shows ANY of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 911 and get them to the hospital immediately. BE-FAST is the primary way to identify if a potential stroke is occurring. The sooner a person receives treatment, the better their chance for recovery.
Understanding Stroke Rehabilitation and Recovery
Common Physical Challenges After Stroke
Stroke recovery is an incredibly individualized process focused on helping survivors regain as much function, independence, and quality of life as possible. Since strokes disrupt the brain’s ability to communicate with muscles and nerves, rehabilitation often involves addressing muscle weakness, impaired balance and coordination, reduced mobility, paralysis, facial drooping, muscle and strength loss, swallowing and speech difficulties, and, unfortunately, various other aspects too. This is why stroke rehabilitation should involve multiple approaches to recovery, involving numerous specialists to help the patient recover.
Effective rehabilitation relies on consistent, multi-dimensional therapy approaches that:
Encourage the brain’s natural ability to reorganize and form new neural connections (neuroplasticity), and
Address and re-strengthen and rewire the brain-body systems impacted by stroke that can contribute to a steady recovery, such as neuromuscular re-education and muscle strength.
What is Emsculpt Neo?
Emsculpt Neo is a non-invasive body contouring and muscle strengthening treatment that combines two technologies: high-intensity focused electromagnetic (HIFEM) energy and radiofrequency (RF) heating. Initially designed for aesthetic purposes like fat elimination and muscle toning, it has shown promising applications in medical rehabilitation.
HIFEM energy induces thousands of "supramaximal" muscle contractions that provide stronger, repeated contractions than can be achieved during independent exercise alone.
RF heating warms the muscle tissue, increasing blood flow and preparing muscles for contraction while also eliminating fat in the treated area, which can be a powerful benefit for patients not able to engage in fat-eliminating exercises due to stroke complications.
Together, these effects stimulate muscle growth, improve muscle tone, and enhance fat metabolism and elimination. For stroke survivors, this means a potential boost in muscle strength, muscle size, and function in weakened or partially paralyzed limbs. One session is just 30 minutes and helps to build muscle and eliminate fat passively.
While hands-on, active physical therapy strategies are a must for post-stroke recovery, Emsculpt Neo offers an advanced form of passive electrical/electromagnetic stimulation that penetrates deeply into the muscle treatment area, showing results such as
25% Muscle Gains
29% Strength Increases
30% Fat Elimination
Emsculpt Neo’s radiofrequency heating energy (RF) helps eliminate fat during sessions, which can be a powerful adaptation for patients who cannot engage in fat-burning exercises due to the symptoms of their stroke.
Traditional rehabilitation focuses on physical therapy and occupational therapy, and sometimes on medications to manage symptoms. However, rebuilding muscle strength remains a significant challenge, especially when voluntary muscle activation is limited, which makes Emsculpt Neo an appealing option to supplement post-stroke recovery with.
How Stroke Affects Muscle Function
A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted, causing brain cells to die. Depending on the stroke's location and severity, survivors may experience:
Muscle weakness or paralysis on one side of the body (hemiparesis or hemiplegia)
Loss of coordination and balance
Spasticity or muscle stiffness
Difficulty with fine motor skills
Difficulty with balance and coordination
These impairments often result from damage to brain areas that control voluntary muscle movement. Muscle atrophy (loss of muscle) can develop quickly due to disuse, further limiting recovery. As outlined in our blog post on Emsculpt Neo, we detail how sarcopenia (natural muscle loss) is a universally occurring process in all adults between the ages of 30 and 40. Everyone experiences some muscle loss throughout life, and this is even more pronounced when a stroke is involved. Maintaining or growing muscle mass is crucial in all aspects of life. But when limited by a stroke, gaining muscle by voluntary measures remains incredibly difficult. Passive involuntary methods like electrical stimulation to muscles is an increasingly studied intervention for stroke survivors, helping them regain muscle function, strength, and size, promoting a healthy recovery and return to normalcy in daily life.
How Emsculpt Neo Supports Post-Stroke Muscle Recovery
Emsculpt Neo offers a unique way to stimulate muscles without requiring active patient effort. This can be especially valuable for stroke survivors who struggle to contract muscles voluntarily.
Muscle Activation
The HIFEM technology in Emsculpt Neo triggers intense muscle contractions that cannot be achieved through regular exercise. These contractions:
Promote muscle fiber recruitment and growth
Help reverse muscle atrophy caused by disuse
Improve muscle endurance and strength
Since the contractions are induced externally, patients with limited voluntary control can still benefit from muscle stimulation.
Enhanced Blood Flow and Tissue Health
The RF heating component increases local blood circulation, which:
Delivers oxygen and nutrients to damaged muscles
Removes metabolic waste products
Supports tissue repair and reduces stiffness
Supports fat elimination when physical activity cannot be performed
Improved circulation can also reduce spasticity and muscle tightness, common issues after stroke.
Complementing Traditional Therapy
Emsculpt Neo is not a replacement for physical therapy, but can complement it by:
Preparing muscles for active rehabilitation exercises
Accelerating muscle strengthening between therapy sessions
Helping maintain muscle mass during periods of limited mobility
Other Supplemental Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Therapies
There are numerous emerging treatments that show immense promise for those recovering from strokes. Here at Better Brain & Body, we are proud to offer a few of the cutting-edge therapies that are great when supplemented with traditional physical and occupational therapies:
Red Light Therapy (RLT): Traditionally called Transcranial Photobiomodulation or tPBM, various forms of red light therapy and near-infrared light therapies can yield significantly impactful results on post-stroke recovery. One of the most commonly used and studied technologies in clinical trials is the Vielight device, which is utilized at Better Brain & Body for TBI/Concussion, Autism patients, ADHD, Post-Stroke, and other neurological conditions. In general, tPBM may contribute to an increase in neuroplasticity, neurogenesis (formation of new brain cells) and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factors (BDNFs). BDNFs play a critical role in learning and memory and are critical proteins in the brain. The activation of these three elements in the brain can play a crucial role in long-term stroke recovery, while similarly showing improvements in behavioral outcomes such as mood, memory, learning, sleep, while also having additional neuro-protective mechanisms (Li, 2024). If you or a loved one are interested in purchasing your own red light therapy or tPBM device, you can save significant amounts of money using our affiliate discount codes by visiting our blog on red light therapy here.
Virtualis Virtual Reality Therapy: More than your grandson's weird video game, VR
therapy is a prominent supplemental therapy for stroke rehabilitation, offering a newer experience to recovery, making it a novel treatment experience which creates the opportunity for increased recovery outcomes such as improvements in balance, gait, upper limb function, postural control, functionality and more. Instead of therapy in your local doctor's office, now you're doing therapy on a beach, or skiing down the slopes, or wherever you wish to be. It is customizable to your liking and creates immense amounts of neuroplasticity (your brain's ability to adapt and change positively) especially in the acute time period after a stroke. You can learn more about VR therapy here.
Mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (mHBOT): While more research is needed on the effects of mHBOT in stroke recovery, many clinics utilize this promising therapy for acute stroke symptoms due to the nature of this treatment. mHBOT pressurizes the air and uses supplemental oxygen through nasal cannulas, helping deliver oxygenated blood to the brain and body--assisting brain regions and brain tissues impacted by stroke and other conditions like TBI with receiving necessary nutrients like oxygenated blood to help further recovery and rehabilitation. Mild HBOT utilizes a soft shell chamber, which is different from hard shell HBOT chambers. Hard shell HBOT chambers differ in the amount of oxygen used as well as the pressurized air delivered to the patient. They also have been studied for stroke recovery, and are sometimes used in the immediate aftermath of a stroke by emergency medical department hospitals. As Better Brain & Body is a rehabilitative clinic and not an emergency department facility, our clinic does not offer Hard Shell HBOT chamber therapies.
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) (Featured Above): rTMS is another very promising treatment. Originally developed as a supplemental therapy to pharmaceutical medications for mental health conditions like Major Depression, rTMS helps repair the prefrontal cortex, a brain region often under-functioning in various mental health conditions and responsible for many symptoms of mental health in ADHD, OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety, and more. Current scientific laboratories are examining how rTMS may affect stroke recovery when stimulating this region of the brain and other brain regions. Dr. Alicia Brown is constantly researching new developments in rTMS therapy and its applications. Better Brain & Body recently brought on board the ExoMind rTMS device. You can speak to Dr. Brown on a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation by clicking the button below to learn more about ExoMind and rTMS and their potential applications for post-stroke recovery.
Benefits and Considerations of Emsculpt Neo Therapy
Benefits
Non-invasive and painless: No needles or surgery involved, making it safe for most patients.
Time-efficient: Sessions typically last 30 minutes, fitting easily into rehabilitation schedules.
Supports muscle rebuilding: Helps reverse muscle loss and improve strength.
Improves circulation: Enhances tissue health and reduces stiffness.
Accessible for limited mobility: Useful for patients unable to perform active exercises.
Considerations
Not a standalone treatment: Works best alongside physical and occupational therapy and other forms of stroke-rehabilitation therapies
Individual results vary: Effectiveness depends on stroke severity and patient condition.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Stroke Rehabilitation
Overall, there are many advanced technologies like Emsculpt Neo out there that represent a growing trend toward using advanced devices to support recovery beyond traditional methods. As research continues, we expect to see more evidence on how electromagnetic muscle stimulation can improve outcomes for stroke survivors and will be sure to update this blog as necessary.
Integrating such therapies with personalized rehabilitation plans in tandem with traditional recovery approaches offers a promising path to help patients regain independence, strength, and quality of life after experiencing a stroke.
If you or a loved one are seeking advanced rehabilitative care, give us a call and schedule a complimentary phone consultation with Dr. Brown. You can also schedule a consultation directly online with us by visiting the button below.
Sources
Know the signs of stroke - BE FAST. (n.d.). Duke Health. https://www.dukehealth.org/blog/know-signs-of-stroke-be-fast
Li, S., Wong, T. W. L., & Ng, S. S. M. (2024). Potential and Challenges of Transcranial Photobiomodulation for the Treatment of Stroke. CNS neuroscience & therapeutics, 30(12), e70142. https://doi.org/10.1111/cns.70142
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