Acupuncture may relieve people with Osteoarthritis
MIL, Dec 21, 2004. Abdul Malik
A landmark study shows that acupuncture, a 2000-year-old system of medicine provides pain relief and improves function for people with osteoarthritis of the knees and serves as an effective complement to standard care.
Acupuncture is a Chinese treatment in which practitioner inserts fine needles in specific points on the body or uses heat, cold, pressure, or minute electrical current.
The study which is published on December 21, 2004 in the issue of the Annals of internal Medicine, is the longest and largest randomized, controlled phase III, clinical trial of acupuncture ever conducted.
Researches applied acupuncture on 570 patients, all 50 years or older. Those patients, who have been suffering from awful pain for the last six months and have never tried acupuncture or steroids were noted to be benefited.
There is a normal trial of 26-weeks. In this period, the patients are to continue their normal medical care, including anti-inflammatory drugs and pain relievers. The result shows that the participants who received acupuncture in the normal trial of 26 weeks, had 40 per cent less pain and a 40 per cent improvement in functioning.
In the eighth week of the trial, the patients, who received genuine acupuncture showed a significant improvement in function as compared to the sham treatment and self-help groups, the research team report in Annals of Internal Medicine.
By the 14th week, same patients had a noteworthy reduction in pain compared to the other two groups, according to researchers.
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