Acupuncture therapy improved fatigue in patients with
chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and idiopathic chronic fatigue (ICF). A
multiple, nonblinded, randomized controlled clinical trial reported the data in
journal of Trials recently.
Reports showed that chronic fatigue syndrome and
idiopathic fatigue have negative impact on health, happiness and productivity.
Patients with either CFS or ICF felt their quality of life being degraded. The
illness is a huge burden to the society. A report in 2008 estimated that the
total annual cost of CFS or ICF to the society in the United States was
extensive and approached $24.0 billion.
A group of scientists in Korea assessed the effectiveness
of acupuncture on patients with either CFS or ICF in a clinical trial. Patients
in acupuncture group were treated at acupoints GB20, GV20, BL11, BL13, BL15,
BL18, BL20 and BL23 for 15 min a day, 2 or 3 times a week, 10 sessions within 4
weeks. Patients in control group only received normal care. Outcome measures
include Fatigue Severity Scale, a short form of the Stress Response Inventory,
the Beck Depression Inventory, the Numeric Rating Scale, and the EuroQol-5 Dimension.
It was found that acupuncture significantly improved all
outcome measures, in particular Fatigue Severity Scale, the primary outcome
measure, at 5 weeks and Stress Response Inventory scale 13 weeks after
treatment. There were no treatment-related serious adverse effects.
The authors stated that the quality of this study was
improved by performing a pragmatic clinic trial which evaluates whether
interventions work in everyday clinical practice settings to better reflect
real clinic situation through multi-institutional clinical trial design. This
implies the results of the study were more reliable than other trial settings.
Reference:
Kim JE et al., Acupuncture
for chronic fatigue syndrome and idiopathic chronic fatigue: a multicenter, nonblinded,
randomized controlled trial. Trials (2015) 16:314. http://www.trialsjournal.com/content/16/1/314
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