|
 Researchers found the benefits of tailored acupuncture seemed to
persist even a year after treatment. But an expert not involved in
the research thinks the evidence for acupuncture is still limited.
Although all participants in the study had a fibromyalgia diagnosis,
for those who got the real, rather than sham, treatments, the study
team tailored acupuncture points based on Traditional Chinese
Medicine diagnosis of underlying issues, such as “Liver Qi
stagnation” or “Yin deficiency.”
“Doing so, it improves the results with the technique, as we
demonstrate in our article where the result of the use of
individualized acupuncture is far higher that standard acupuncture
for these patients,” lead author Dr. Jorge Vas of the Pain Treatment
Unit at Dona Mercedes Primary Health Center in Seville told Reuters
Health by email.
“In . . . our pain clinic, we give individualized acupuncture not
only for fibromyalgia patients but also for any patient with
different pathologies, and we can see the difference in the result
with patients in which standard acupuncture is practiced,” he said.
The study included 164 adults with fibromyalgia, a chronic
widespread pain disorder affecting up to 5 percent of people.
Patients had all been referred to Vas’ clinic from three primary
care centers in southern Spain.
The researchers divided participants into two groups, with members
of both receiving weekly 20-minute acupuncture sessions over nine
weeks. One group received real, personalized acupuncture and the
other got fake treatments from a therapist mimicking the actions of
acupuncture without using needles.
Patients didn’t know which group they were in, and they continued to
take any fibromyalgia medications they had already been prescribed.
All the patients were interviewed, completed questionnaires and were
physically examined before the study began, after 10 weeks, six
months and one year later.
Both groups experienced some pain relief at the 10-week point, but
the reduction in pain intensity was significantly larger, at 41
percent, in the real acupuncture group compared with 27 percent in
the sham acupuncture group.
By one year, those in the acupuncture group still reported a 19
percent reduction in pain intensity compared to their scores at the
start of the study, while the sham group reported only a 6 percent
reduction.
[to top of second column] |
Comparing real acupuncture treatments to imitated acupuncture can be
difficult as even the sham treatment group does attend a treatment
session and gets personal attention from an acupuncturist, which
past research suggests may have some effect of its own.
“It is also surprising that the control group treated with sham
acupuncture, which was stimulation of acupuncture points with a
little tube without puncture, worked for pain relief after the
sessions even up to 10 weeks after finished treatment,” Vas said.
Drug treatments for fibromyalgia have had mixed results and they
often carry side effects and may not be effective, Vas said. And the
evidence for psychological techniques is also limited, he said.
The value of the current study’s findings may also be limited,
however, according to Dr. Marco Matucci Cerinic, professor of
rheumatology at the University of Florence, who was not part of the
research.
The acupuncturists certainly knew whether they were delivering
actual or sham treatment, and patients could also have been aware,
which limits the results, he said.
The methodology of the study was questionable and may not add
anything to the fibromyalgia literature, Cerinic told Reuters Health
by email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1KqEkaS Acupuncture in Medicine, online
February 15, 2016.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
