Acupuncture is a therapy whose origins lie in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The therapy has thousands of years of anecdotal evidence and, thanks to a rash of studies conducted in the past few years, some scientific evidence behind it. Yet Western culture remains skeptical. Licensed acupuncturists aren't considered health professionals by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the procedure is rarely covered by health insurance.
Acupuncture involves the use of small needles placed in specific points on the body called acupoints. This method was developed out of the traditional belief that pain and dysfunction result when energy meridians in the body become blocked. The needles are meant to unblock the flow of energy. A budding Western interpretation of the treatment is that the needles stimulate circulation, thereby delivering nutrients and oxygen to body structures in need of repair.
While some insist that we adhere to technologically advanced forms of medicine such as drugs and surgery for the treatment of chronic pain, the body of research generated around acupuncture in recent years is making that position more and more untenable. Chronic pain is said to affect about 1/3 of the U.S. population, with back pain topping the charts at around 8%. Conventional therapies have left many pain patients without relief or hope. Reviewing the research surrounding acupuncture should change some minds not only concerning its validity but its necessity in today's health care system.
Pain Relief Effectiveness
One novel 2012 study compared the effect of acupuncture to that of anti-inflammatory injection for patients with acute lower back pain and severe disability. Inflammation is a factor in most types of pain, and anti-inflammatory injections are often used for people with sciatica and other forms of back pain because they quickly deliver long-lasting pain relief. The specific type of acupuncture used in this study is called motion style acupuncture, which entails movement (either passive or active) of a patient's body part as needles are inserted. The study included 58 patients randomly assigned to either treatment group.
Each group received only one session of either acupuncture or injection. Pain and disability scores were taken at baseline and 30 minutes, 2 weeks, 4 weeks and 24 weeks after treatment. The acupuncture group outperformed the injection group through the four week mark; no statistically significant differences were noted at 24 weeks. On a 10-point scale, pain scores decreased 3.12 points more in the acupuncture group than in the injection group. Disability scores decreased 32.95% more in the acupuncture group than in the injection group. More on the study can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ardkwa7.
This study shows that technological advances don't always trump older forms of treatment. The significant decreases in pain and disability in the acupuncture group show that this therapy can be valuable in the treatment of acute, severe pain.
Cost-Effectiveness
Another study analyzed just over 1,000 treatment records for people with lower back pain (whether acute or chronic is unspecified, so it is likely that both types of pain were represented); 201 cases involved people who had sought acupuncture treatment and 804 involved those who did not.
The group of patients who sought acupuncture experienced a reduction in physician visits of 49% post-treatment, compared to a decrease of 2% in the group that sought other forms of treatment. The total costs of services received from physicians decreased 37% after acupuncture treatment, whereas the control group saw only a 1% reduction in costs. More on this can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22070438.
This study not only indicates that acupuncture was effective in helping to manage back pain, but that it can save money as well.
While drug therapy comes with serious risks and limited effectiveness, acupuncture could serve as a safer, more effective and less expensive alternative for pain patients. Keep an open mind concerning complementary and alternative medicine and stay up-to-date on the latest research.
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