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Acupuncture has shown potential in alleviating symptoms and improving overall quality of life for patients suffering from ankle sprains.
To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating ankle sprains, the researchers performed a systematic review, sourcing data from 15 databases and two trial registries up until February 2012. Only randomized controlled trials of acupuncture that involved patients with ankle sprains and reported improvements of symptoms, particularly pain, were included. Different aspects such as the type of acupuncture, the grade of sprain, and the type of control were considered. The risk of bias and sample size were assessed using a Cochrane risk of bias tool, and sensitivity analyses were performed regarding these factors and reported outcomes.
In relation to the results, they incorporated 17 trials with a total of 1820 participants. It was found that overall quality of the trials was lacking, with only three properly describing their randomization methods, and just one detailing a method for obscuring allocation. More participants who received acupuncture reported a global improvement of symptoms compared to those who did not undergo acupuncture. Additionally, acupuncture as an auxiliary treatment also enhanced global symptoms compared to other treatments alone, without significant changes in results. The advantages of acupuncture remained notable even after limiting the analysis to the two trials with the lowest risk of bias. Acupuncture proved to be more efficient than other control methods in reducing pain, enabling return to normal activities, and enhancing quality of life. However, these analyses relied on a small range of studies. Acupuncture did not seem to be connected with any detrimental events.
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Moderate-quality evidence revealed an association between acupressure and greater pain relief compared with physical therapy.
2021 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Clinical Efficacy and Safety of Acupressure on Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Tao Li , Xiaohui Li ,Fan Huang , Qiang Tian , Z. Y. Fan , and S. Wu
Systematic Review Low Back Pain
The systematic review and meta-analysis included 23 RCTs with 2400 participants with low back pain. Consistent with previous systematic reviews, moderate-quality evidence revealed an association between acupressure and greater pain relief compared with physical therapy.
Although rated as very-low to low, poor quality evidence suggested that acupressure, with or without combinative acupuncture therapy, contributed to a greater amelioration of pain and functional disability from low back pain compared with usual care, tuina massage, or acupuncture.
Trial sequential analysis results revealed that adequate studies supported the significance of the clinical response rate of acupressure, with or without combinative acupuncture therapy, compared to other treatments.
Acupuncture displays potential as a safe and effective treatment for foot and ankle pain, providing pain relief and functional improvement.
2021 Medical Acupuncture The Efficacy of Acupuncture on Foot and Ankle for Pain Intensity, Functional Status, and General Quality of Life in Adults: A Systematic Review Trinh K, Belski N, Zhou F, Kuhad A, Luk D, Youn E
Systematic Review Ankle Pain Foot Pain
The researchers gathered Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) from 6 major English databases, and relevant systematic reviews manually via Google Scholar. The selected RCTs studied the comparison of acupuncture with various types of sham acupuncture and nonactive or waitlist controls in terms of pain intensity, functional status, and general quality of life. All procedures including study screening, data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and quality assessment were conducted independently. Instead of performing a quantitative synthesis, the team opted for a narrative synthesis as quantitative pooling wasn't fit for the collected data.
Four RCTs involving a total of 211 participants were included. Due to distinct clinical heterogeneity involving all the outcomes, the team did not conduct a quantitative analysis. Using a quality grading system, all outcomes were rated as supported by low or very low-quality evidence. Despite this, the study still showed acupuncture is potentially effective for treating participants with plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendinopathy, in terms of pain relief and functional status improvement, over short- and intermediate-term follow-ups. Notably, no adverse events linked to acupuncture use were reported.
Acupuncture could significantly relieve pain and increase cure rate for acute ankle sprain, even producing improved results when combined with other therapies.
2020 Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Efficacy and Safety of Acupuncture Therapy for Patients with Acute Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials Liu AF, Gong SW, Chen JX, Zhai JB
Systematic Review Ankle
The researchers executed parallel-group randomized controlled trials without any language or publication date restraints. Participants suffering from acute ankle sprains were included irrespective of their demographic details, or the diagnostic criteria used to confirm their condition. Experimental interventions consisted of acupuncture alone or a combination of acupuncture and traditional therapies, while the control interventions were either no treatment, placebo, or traditional therapies only. The Kofoed ankle score was the main outcome, with secondary outcomes covering a range of parameters from pain scale to cure rate. Several databases were searched to find potentially eligible studies up to the date of September 10, 2020, with trial registry platforms and the reference lists of the eligible studies also being verified for any ongoing or unpublished studies.
The study analysed seventeen eligible studies to study the effect of acupuncture on acute ankle sprains. No significant difference was found between the Kofoed ankle scores of the acupuncture and Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation (RICE) groups. However, acupuncture did show a significant impact on pain relief and an increased cure rate compared to the RICE group. The combination of acupuncture and RICE also resulted in a significant increase in pain relief and cure rate compared to just the RICE method. Acupuncture, when combined with massage, brought about a significant reduction in pain compared to just massage, while the combination with traditional Chinese medicine outperformed Chinese medicine alone in pain relief, duration of pain, and cure rate. There were almost no adverse reactions reported, with one mild drug-related allergic reaction which healed without any treatment.
Electroacupuncture and manual acupuncture show similar effectiveness in relieving plantar heel pain syndrome with no significant difference between the two modalities.
2020 Acupuncture in Medicine Comparison of electroacupuncture and manual acupuncture for patients with plantar heel pain syndrome: a randomized controlled trial Wang W, Liu Y, Jiao R, Liu S, Zhao J, Liu Z
Randomised Controlled Trial Acupuncture Ankle Pain Electroacupuncture
In this research, participants were randomly divided into two groups to receive either electroacupuncture (EA) or manual acupuncture (MA) treatments. They underwent a course of 12 treatment sessions over a span of 4 weeks, followed by 24 weeks of follow-up. The study prioritized the assessment of treatment responders, who were identified as patients showcasing at least a 50% reduction from their initial worst pain intensity experienced during the initial steps in the morning after 4 weeks of treatment.
The study encompassed 92 patients diagnosed with PHPS, enlisted between July 2018 and June 2019. A total of 78 patients (85% of the original group) successfully completed both the treatment and follow-up. The results highlight that after the 4-week treatment period, both the EA and MA groups experienced a decrease in heel pain and showed improved plantar function with no serious treatment-related adverse events. Interestingly, no significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of pain intensity relief or in any secondary outcomes after 4 weeks of treatment and at follow-up points at 16 and 28 weeks.
Acupuncture showed a more favourable effect in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation than lumbar traction, ibuprofen, diclofenac sodium and meloxicam.
2018 Acupuncture in Medicine Acupuncture for Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Tang S, Mo Z, Zhang R
Systematic Review Lumbar Disc Herniation Lumbar Disc Prolapse Sciatica
Thirty RCTs involving 3503 participants were included in the study. Meta-analysis showed that acupuncture had a higher total effective rate than lumbar traction, ibuprofen, diclofenac sodium and meloxicam. Acupuncture was also better than lumbar traction and diclofenac sodium in terms of visual analogue scale (VAS) scores, and better than lumbar traction with respect to Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) scores.
In addition, the total effective rate in five individual trials was greater for acupuncture than for mannitol plus dexamethasone and mecobalamin, ibuprofen plus fugui gutong capsule, loxoprofen, mannitol plus dexamethasone and huoxue zhitong decoction, respectively. Additionally, two individual trials showed a superior effect of acupuncture in VAS scores comparedwith ibuprofen or mannitol plus dexamethasone, respectively.
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