‘From the available evidence, acupuncture may have beneficial effects on improving dependency, global neurological deficiency, and some specific neurological impairments for people with stroke in the convalescent stage, with no obvious serious adverse events.’
We see many stroke patients within our clinic, but why not show some hard facts on how acupuncture can help!
As we all a little scientifically geeky in our clinic, we did some research and found some really promising evidenced based medical articles for Acupuncture and Stroke Rehab..
Lets see what we found!
A Cochrane Review!!
All scholars know that a Cochrane review sits high up there for reliability and thoroughness in reviewing research.
The objective of the review was to determine the efficacy and safety of acupuncture therapy in people with subacute and chronic stroke.
They tested the following hypotheses:
1) acupuncture can reduce the risk of death or dependency in people with subacute and chronic stroke at the end of treatment and at follow‐up; 2) acupuncture can improve neurological deficit and quality of life after treatment and at the end of follow‐up; 3) acupuncture can reduce the number of people requiring institutional care; and 4) acupuncture is not associated with any intolerable adverse effects.
And the conclusion
‘From the available evidence, acupuncture may have beneficial effects on improving dependency, global neurological deficiency, and some specific neurological impairments for people with stroke in the convalescent stage, with no obvious serious adverse events.’
That’s great, but we decide to look more specifically at some research… the results of RCT’s (Randomised Control Trials) were great!
Here are a few more snippets…
Johansson et al. included 78 patients (median age was 76 years) with severe hemiparesis due to stroke of either side, hospitalised in Sweden. Patients had to be able to co-operate during the examination and tests, but unable to walk without support or eat and dress without help.
Motor function, balance, and Barthel ADL were assessed before the start of treatment and at 1 and 3 months after the acute stroke; ADL was also assessed after 12 months. They also measured the quality of life (QoL) using the NHP 3, 6, and 12 months after stroke onset. Patients given acupuncture recovered faster and to a greater ex- tent than the controls, with a significant difference for balance, walking, ADL, QoL in terms of energy, mobility, emotional reaction and sociality, and days spent at hospitals/nursing homes.
That’s great…lets see some more…
Sallström et al. investigated whether acupuncture treatment, if given to stroke patients in the subacute phase in addition to routine rehabilitation, would influence motor function, ADL and QoL. The patients were divided into acupuncture and control groups. The improvement was significantly greater in the acupuncture trial group compared to the control group in terms of MAS and NHP.
Wait, there is still more
Duan et al. included 92 acute stroke patients in a Chinese hospital suffering from cerebral infarction con- firmed by CT . The subjects were randomised into acupuncture and control groups according to the location of infarction. Manual acupuncture was performed once a day for 30 days. The therapeutic effect was assessed by using CSRM. The result suggested a significant improvement in the acupuncture group compared with the control group.
So there is the science… stay tuned to see how we work within a stroke rehabilitation team and what we do in our Dumfries Acupuncture clinic!
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