Acupuncture helped pain relief significantly in patient
with acute low back pain and analgesic effect of acupuncture lasted up to 3
days after a treatment. A clinical study of efficacy of acupuncture on low back
pain in the emergency department was reported in journal of Evidence-Based
Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Low back pain is one of the most common complaints from
patients in the emergency department. Although there are many pain relief
medications available and some are quite temporarily effective many associated
side effects make them not suitable for many patients. Acupuncture has been
used to treat both acute and chronic pain in China since the beginning use of
acupuncture.
Recently a group of scientists and physicians led by Dr.
LC Lo in Taiwan, China carried out a clinical study to assess the efficacy and
safety of acupuncture treatment to acute low back pain in emergency department.
Recruited patients with acute low back pain were divided into verum acupuncture
group (n=45) and sham acupuncture group (n=14). Due to most patients were
unable to maintain a face-down posture during treatment acupoints were selected
at the limbs according to traditional Chinese meridian system. Within verum
group patients were given acupuncture at LI4, LI10, ST36, GB34 and LR3
acupoints for 15 min. The control group were received sham acupuncture by pasting
seed-patches next to the acupoints used in verum group. Outcome evaluations
include the visual analogue scale and heart rate variability and adverse
events. The visual analogue scale was graded from 0 points (no pain) to 10
points (the worst possible pain) and was measured 3 times, before, after
treatment and 3-day follow-up.
Data from study showed that verum acupuncture
significantly reduced low back pain soon after treatment and the therapeutic
effect of acupuncture maintained 3 days after acupuncture compared with sham
acupuncture. There were no obvious alternations in heart rate variability and
no adverse effect was reported.
The authors suggested that acupuncture produced an
immediate pain relief in patients with low back pain in emergency department.
Acupuncture could be a very viable alternative for pain management for those
patients.
Reference
LC Lo et al., Efficacy
and Safety of Acupuncture for Acute Low Back Pain in Emergency Department: A
Pilot Cohort Study. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Volume
2015, Article ID 179731,8 pages. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2015/179731/
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