Journal ArticleDOI
Validating a new non-penetrating sham acupuncture device: two randomised controlled trials
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TLDR
The results suggest that the procedure using the new device is indistinguishable from the same procedure using real needles in acupuncture naïve subjects, and is inactive, where the specific needle sensation (de qi) is taken as a surrogate measure of activity.Abstract:
For clinical trials of acupuncture, it would be desirable to have a sham procedure that is indistinguishable from the real treatment, yet inactive. A sham needle has been designed which telescopes instead of penetrating the skin. The Park Sham Device involves an improved method of supporting the sham needle and requires validation. The objective of these studies was to test whether the sham procedure using the new device was 1) indistinguishable from the same procedure using real needles in acupuncture naive subjects, and 2) inactive, where the specific needle sensation (de qi) is taken as a surrogate measure of activity. The studies were designed as subject and assessor blind, randomised controlled trials. Study 1) included 58 patients enrolled in a clinical trial of acupuncture for acute stroke. Study 2) included 63 healthy, acupuncture naive, adult volunteers. The interventions used were real or sham acupuncture using the Park Sham Device. Study 1) was set in a district general hospital, and study 2) in a university laboratory. The outcome measure in study 1) was the form of treatment that patients believed they had received. In study 2) the outcome measure was experience of de qi, as judged by three acupuncture experts. No patient in either group(study 1) believed he or she had been treated with the sham needle. In 40 volunteers (study 2) for whom experts achieved consensus, the relative risk of experiencing de qi with real acupuncture to that with sham acupuncture was 15.38 (95% CI 2.26 to 104.86). The inter-rater reliability of all 13 experts (study 2), calculated from their judgements on 10 subjects selected by randomisation, was 0.52 (95% CI 0.19 to 0.61). In conclusion, the results suggest that the procedure using the new device is indistinguishable from the same procedure using real needles in acupuncture naive subjects, and is inactive, where the specific needle sensation (de qi) is taken as a surrogate measure of activity. It is therefore a valid control for acupuncture trials. The findings also lend support to the existence of de qi, a major concept underlying traditional Chinese acupuncture.read more
Citations
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Acupuncture for depression
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the effectiveness and adverse effects of acupuncture for treatment of individuals with depression and found low-quality evidence suggesting that acupuncture (manual and electro-) may moderately reduce the severity of depression by end of treatment.
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Acupuncture – a critical analysis
TL;DR: Some findings are encouraging but others suggest that its clinical effects mainly depend on a placebo response, and acupuncture remains steeped in controversy.
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Systematic Review of Acupuncture in Cancer Care: A Synthesis of the Evidence
M. Kay Garcia,Jennifer L. McQuade,Robin Haddad,Sonya Patel,Richard T. Lee,Peiying Yang,J. Lynn Palmer,Lorenzo Cohen +7 more
TL;DR: Acupuncture is an appropriate adjunctive treatment for chemotherapy-induced nausea/vomiting, but additional studies are needed because efficacy remains undetermined owing to high ROB among studies.
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Modulation of cerebellar activities by acupuncture stimulation: evidence from fMRI study.
TL;DR: The data suggest that cerebellum serves as important activation loci during the acupuncture stimulation of Pericardium 6, and clinical efficacy of PC6 may be mediated by the cerebellar vestibular neuromatrix.
Journal ArticleDOI
Stop Hypertension With the Acupuncture Research Program (SHARP) Results of a Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial
Eric A. Macklin,Peter M. Wayne,Leslie A. Kalish,Peter Valaskatgis,James Thompson,May C. M. Pian-Smith,Qunhao Zhang,Stephanie Stevens,Christine Goertz,Ronald J. Prineas,Beverly Buczynski,Randall M. Zusman +11 more
TL;DR: Categorizing participants by age, race, gender, baseline BP, history of antihypertensive use, obesity, or primary traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis did not reveal any subgroups for which the benefits of active acupuncture differed significantly from sham acupuncture.
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Journal ArticleDOI
Introducing a placebo needle into acupuncture research.
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TL;DR: The placebo needle is sufficiently credible to be used in investigations of the effects of acupuncture, and is tested whether needling with the placebo needle feels any different from real acupuncture.
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Randomised clinical trial comparing the effects of acupuncture and a newly designed placebo needle in rotator cuff tendinitis.
TL;DR: It was showed that needling is an important part of the acupuncture effect in the treatment of chronic shoulder pain in athletes and using the new placebo method as control for other ailments could improve the evidence of specific acupuncture effects beyond pain treatment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Efficacy of acupuncture on osteoarthritic pain. A controlled, double-blind study.
A C Gaw,L W Chang,Shaw L-C +2 more
TL;DR: Thirty patients, randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, participated in a double-blind study to assess the effectiveness of acupuncture in reducing chronic pain associate pain in patients with chronic pain.