Nerve deafness is one type of hearing loss. A recent study
analysed 12 clinical trials of acupuncture treatment for nerve deafness and
found that acupuncture can significantly improve the hearing of patients with
nerve deafness. The study is published in the International Journal of Clinical
Experimental and Medicine.
Nerve deafness, also known as sensorineural hearing
deafness, is a type of hearing loss. It
occurs from damage to inner ear, auditory nerve that runs from the ear to the
brain or the brain. The inner part of the ear contains tiny hair cells (nerve
endings), that change sound into the electric signals. Then the nerves carry
the signals into the brain. Nerve deafness is caused by damage to these special
cells or to the nerve fibres in the inner ear and to the nerve that carries the
signal to the brain and brain regions relevant to hearing. Many factors are
linked to the nerve deafness such as genetic syndromes, aging, infection,
injury, loud noise and many more. Nerve deafness is manifested by progressive
hearing impairment at different levels, even deaf accompanied with tinnitus and
sensation of intra-aural occlusion. Although the hearing aids can improve
hearing the treatments depend on the underlying cause of condition.
Recently Dr. Y Jiang and colleagues in China conducted a systematic
evaluation of efficacy and safety of acupuncture treatment for nerve deafness.
They carried out a literature search about acupuncture therapy and nerve
deafness from many scientific data bases and selected 12 randomized controlled clinical
studies according to a set of criteria. They analysed the data of 527 patients
by using a meta-analysis method. It was found that overall efficacy of
acupuncture therapy was significantly better than that of the conventional
Western medicine and better than that of traditional Chinese herb medicine.
When acupuncture was combined with either Western medicine or herb medicine the
synergetic effect was superior to the medication alone.
Reference:
Jiang Y et al., Efficacy and safety of
acupuncture therapy for nerve deafness: a meta-analysis of randomized
controlled trials. Int J Clin Exp Med 2015;8(2):2614-2620. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4402856/
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