Acupuncture: Uses, Research Studies & Pain Treatment

What is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a system of complementary medicine that involves pricking the skin or tissues with needles, used to alleviate pain and to treat various physical, mental, and emotional conditions. Acupuncture is an unorthodox approach towards relieving muscle pain; however, the practice does not provide any clear clinical effectiveness as a treatment.

Acupuncture Research Studies For Pain

A systematic review of 63 randomized controlled trials, including 6382 individuals by Yuan et al., assessed the effectiveness of acupuncture techniques for musculoskeletal pain.²¹ Researchers discovered that acupuncture demonstrated low-quality evidence of acupuncture’s effectiveness in terms of musculoskeletal pain.²¹ On the contrary, studies have resulted in high-quality evidence of ASTR treatment’s effectiveness in treating musculoskeletal pain. ASTR stands for Advanced Soft Tissue Release, a manual therapy specialty developed by Dr. Joesph Jacobs, DPT. ASTR takes a holistic approach to treating the source of soft tissue restriction in a way that is virtually pain-free and highly effective.

체계적인 검토는 여러 연구 또는 논문을 수집하고 비판적으로 분석하는 문헌 검토 유형입니다. In their systematic review of 13 trials with 3025 participants, Madsen et al. studied the effectiveness of acupuncture by assessing the differences present between participants who received acupuncture, placebo acupuncture, and no acupuncture. Treatment was given to patients on a range between 1 day and 12 weeks and pain conditions included knee osteoarthritis, tension headaches migraine, low back pain, fibromyalgia, abdominal scar pain, postoperative pain, and pain during colonoscopy procedure.²² While there was a moderate difference between placebo acupuncture and no acupuncture groups, there was a small difference between acupuncture and placebo acupuncture groups.²² A conclusion of the study is that there is a small analgesic effect of acupuncture that seems to lack clinical relevance and cannot be clearly distinguished from bias. 

Another systematic review of 21 trials by Andrea Furlan compared acupuncture, no treatment, sham acupuncture, and other therapies to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating chronic low-back pain.²³  Results showed that while acupuncture was more sufficient than no treatment, acupuncture was not any more effective than other therapy treatments.

효과적인 통증 완화 치료

ASTR은 종종 통증의 원인이 되는 근육 불균형, 흉터 조직, 통증유발점, 근막 제한, 염증, 자세, 신체 역학을 해결하여 근육 및 관절 통증을 부드럽고 효과적이며 자연스러운 방식으로 치료합니다. ASTR은 증상뿐만 아니라 통증의 근본 원인을 해결하기 위해 전체적인 접근 방식을 취합니다. ASTR 치료는 근육 및 관절 통증에 대해 집에서 할 수 있습니다.

참조:

21. Yuan Q, Wang P, Liu L, et al. Acupuncture for musculoskeletal pain: A meta-analysis and meta-regression of sham-controlled randomized clinical trials. Scientific Reports. 2016;6:30675. doi:10.1038/srep30675.

22.  Madsen MV, Gotzsche PC, Hrobjartsson A. Acupuncture treatment for pain: systematic review of randomised clinical trials with acupuncture, placebo acupuncture, and no acupuncture groups. Bmj. 2009;338. doi:10.1136/bmj.a3115.