This blog is to share the latest research and development of acupuncture and raise the awareness of alternative treatments for your conditions, and is for information only.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

Acupuncture treatment cured postoperative adhesive intestinal obstruction symptoms – a case report

Acupuncture exerted a complete symptomatic relief in a patient suffering from recurrent postoperative adhesive intestinal obstruction (PAIO). A case report was published in the journal of Acupuncture in Medicine.

Adhesive intestinal obstruction is caused by a variety of pathologic processes. The most common cause of adhesive intestinal obstruction is abdomino-pelvic surgery followed by malignancy, Crohn disease, and hernias. Main signs and symptoms associated with adhesive intestinal obstruction include abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation, and diarrhea. Treatments for the condition include gastric decompression, bowel rest and anti-inflammatory agents. However those treatments are not always effective. Surgical adhesiolysis is invasive and may cause new adhesion development, leading to recurrent episode of adhesive intestinal obstruction.

Recently Dr. CC Tseng in Taiwan, China used acupuncture to treat a patient with recurrent postoperative adhesive intestinal obstruction. A 49-year-old woman patient had an open appendicectomy for acute appendicitis in 1995. Then she developed intermittent abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation after operation and required several treatments in hospital. She had two surgical adhesiolysises performed in 1999 and in 2005 separately due to the recurrent and severe adhesive intestinal obstruction. Since then she continued to experience abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation and these affected her sleep and overall quality of life. The patient sought acupuncture as alternative treatment and was given acupuncture treatment at acupoints ST36 and ST25 for 20 min, three times a week for total 4 weeks. The pain intensity was measured with the Visual Analogue scale after each treatment. After the first treatment session, patient felt markedly reduction in abdominal pain. After the 3rd treatment her nausea stopped and sleep was back to normal. After 4-week treatment the patient felt free of symptoms and was able to live a normal life. In an 8-year follow-up after the last acupuncture treatment in 2006 the patient said the symptoms have nerve reoccurred.

Reference
CC Tseng & A Tseng, Effect of acupuncture on postoperative adhesive intestinal obstruction. Acupunct Med2015;0:1–2. doi:10.1136/acupmed-2015-010843.   http://aim.bmj.com/content/early/2015/06/01/acupmed-2015-010843.extract

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Acupuncture may be more effective than drugs in treating Alzheimer’s disease

Acupuncture may be more effective than drugs in treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Acupuncture improves effect of drugs for treating AD in terms of enhancing cognitive function. A systematic review study reported its data in the journal Medicine.

There is increasing number of reports regarding clinical trials of acupuncture treatment for AD during past 10 years. Most of studies were performed in China and were published in Chinese. The effectiveness and safety of acupuncture on AD has not been systematic reviewed until recently.

Dr. Zhou and colleagues in China evaluated the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture in treating AD by systematic review and meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique used for contrasting and combining results from different studies in the hope of identifying patterns among studies. Ten randomized controlled studies with a total of 585 subjects were used in the study. 

They found that the combined results from 6 randomized controlled studies showed acupuncture is better than drug at improving scores on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scale, indicating the enhancement in the cognitive function. Evidence from pooled data of 3 trials revealed that acupuncture plus drug denepezil was more effective at improving MMSE scale than denepezil alone. In a broad review they found that only 2 out of 141 acupuncture clinical trials reported the incidence of acupuncture-related adverse effect. Only 7 of 3416 patients reported to have adverse reactions relevant to acupuncture.

Authors conclude that “Acupuncture may be more effective than drugs and may enhance the effect of drugs for treating AD in terms of improving cognitive function. Acupuncture may also be more effective than drugs at improving AD patients’ ability to carry out their daily lives.”
However, more clinical studies with better protocol design and better standards are urgently needed to prove the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating AD in more countries.

Reference:

J Zhou et al., The effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for patients with Alzheimer disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Medicine (Baltimore). 2015 Jun; 94(22):e933.

Wednesday 10 June 2015

Acupuncture is an effective poststroke rehabilitation tool

Acupuncture therapy increased quality of life, improved mobility and activities of daily living of poststroke patients. The finding in which a review article recently reported in the Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

It has been reported that approximately half of stroke survivors suffers from hemiparesis, cognitive deficits including difficulty in solving problems, dementia, memory impairment, depression and difficulty in communication. These significantly degraded their independence, quality of life and sense of emotional well-being. Although conventional poststroke rehabilitation helps many stroke patients restore some of their physical or emotional function the outcome is not always satisfactory.

Recently Ms. C Farmer from University of California, in the United States studied some clinical trials which assessed the effect of acupuncture on the poststroke patients suffering from chronic stroke symptoms. She found that overall those clinical studies consist of a set of strengths and weakness that suggest the acupuncture as a worthy addition to the poststroke patient rehabilitation. Acupuncture in particular is effective in improving quality of life, enhancing mobility and cognitive function. There were no adverse effects.

Author stated that among the reviewed study there was a common consensus, based on the data that acupuncture is a safe and effective treatment for poststroke rehabilitation.

Reference:
C Farmer, Bringing holistic treatments to the attention of medicine: acupuncture as an effective poststroke rehabilitation tool. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 2015 Apr;20(2):120-5.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25552471

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Acupuncture improved sleep quality, depression and stress in elderly people

Acupuncture treatment helped get better sleep, improved depression and stress in elderly people as recently reported in journal Neuroscience Letter.

It is known that the sleep quality in elderly people is quite poor due to aging process. Poor sleep in elderly population causes tiredness, loss of interest of daily activity, stress and depression, and can significantly impair the quality of their life. Poor sleep is believed to be associated with many detrimental physiological and psychological changes such as alterations in brain neurotransmitters which are important for maintaining a healthy body and mood.

Recently doctors in Brazil conducted a clinical study to assess the effect of acupuncture on sleep quality in elderly people. Forty-eight elderly (aged 60-77) were randomly assigned into acupuncture group and placebo group. In acupuncture group acupoints SP6, LI4, ST36, LIV3, PC6 and EX-NH3 were stimulated for 25 min, twice a week for total 10 sessions. In placebo group, needle sites were far away from true acupoints, stimulation is superficial and no needle was inserted. Sleep quality, depression and stress were evaluated by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the perceived stress scale (PSS) before and after treatment. It was found that acupuncture markedly improved the sleep quality, depression and stress in all treated participants compared with placebo treatment.

The study also investigated effect of acupuncture on immunosenecence and brain derived neurotrophic factor. No difference was found between acupuncture and placebo groups.
The authors suggest that in elderly population acupuncture could be a very effective treatment for sleep problem, depression and stress without side effect.

Reference:
Zuppa C et al., Acupuncture for sleep quality, BDNF levels and immunosenescence: A randomized controlled study. Neuroscience Letters 587 (2015) 35–40.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25511549