Acupuncture (either alone or combined with speech and language therapy) may be effective for poststroke aphasia.
Fourteen trials involving 936 participants had poor reporting and methodological quality. Our meta-analysis showed that compared to the speech and language therapy (SLT) group, acupuncture combined with SLT could improve the rate of Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE), scores of Aphasia Battery of Chinese (ABC) which includes repeating ability, reading ability, writing ability, naming ability, and listening comprehension ability. All RCTs were considered at high risk of biased assessment. In the future, rigorous clinical trials with an accurate method design and high reporting quality are required to validate our results.
