Cerebral palsy is used to describe a wide range of
neurological disorders that mainly affect movement and coordination. It is caused by the damage of parts of brain
responsible for movement controlling and can occur before, during and after
birth. The main symptoms include muscle stiffness and weakness, involuntary
movement and problems with balance and coordination. There is currently no
known cure for it. The standard treatments are physiotherapy, speech therapy
and occupational therapy and medications to relax muscles and ease pain.
Although acupuncture is used to treat many symptoms of
cerebral palsy there are few studies regarding acupuncture’s effectiveness on
cerebral palsy. A recent study published by Chinese researchers reported acupuncture,
in addition to traditional rehabilitative training, significantly improved the
effectiveness of treatment for children with cerebral palsy. The effective rate
increased from 52% for the group (100 patients) who only received
rehabilitative training to 84% for the group (100 patients) who received
acupuncture and rehabilitative training. CT and SPECT brain neuroimaging
confirmed that acupuncture group showed significantly higher improvement rates
in brain development, neuronal brain metabolic functions and reductions of
brain atrophy.
The authors conclude that “The forward curative effect of
acupuncture combined with rehabilitation training was significantly better than
the rehabilitation training alone.”
Reference:
Liu ZH et al., Clinical observation on treatment
of clearing the Governor Vessel and refreshing the mind needling in neural
development and remediation of children with cerebral palsy. Chin J Integr Med.
2013, 19(7):505-9. doi: 10.1007/s11655-013-1504-9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23818202
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