Insights & Discussion
Acupuncture therapy seems effective for motor function, pain relief and activities of daily living in stroke patients with mild Shoulder-Hand Syndrome, when it is used in combination with rehabilitation.
This systematic review shows that adding acupuncture to routine rehabilitation can improve clinical outcomes (pain and motor function) for people with mild post-stroke SHS. However, the evidence was assessed as “low” by GRADE due to the methodological limitations and heterogeneity of included studies, which made our certainty in recommending acupuncture for this condition in clinical practice as “low.” Well-designed placebo-controlled RCTs with a long treatment duration and follow up, as well as standardized reporting, are needed to support acupuncture's safe and effective use in the management of post-stroke SHS.
Discover Related Insights
Acupuncture could be safe and effective for pain reduction, restoring shoulder function, and restoring flexion range of motion for frozen shoulder patients in the short term and midterm.
2020 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine The Effectiveness of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Frozen Shoulder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Ben-Arie E, Kao PY, Lee YC, Ho WC, Chou LW, Liu HP
Systematic Review Acupuncture Frozen Shoulder Shoulder Pain
In this systematic review and a meta-analysis, acupuncture had shown to be a safe treatment with a significant effect in regard to reducing pain, improving shoulder function, and flexion ROM in the short term and midterm. However, due to the small number of included studies and methodological limitations in these studies, more large-scale high-quality RCTs are warranted in order to give a robust conclusion. Future studies should compare acupuncture to other treatments and sham acupuncture. Additionally, longer follow-up time is needed for investigating the effect of acupuncture in the mid- and long term, and the duration of future FS studies follow-up should be increased to one year.