Trying to Prove Acupuncture Works for Stroke

Acupuncture has been proved effective in a number of conditions associated with pain, e.g. fibromyalgia, chronic headache, and osteoarthritis. In China, it’s been used for hundreds of years to treat chronic stroke symptoms. However, there’s never been any clear proof that it actually improves a stroke victim’s rehabilitation.

A new review of available information has been done to see if acupuncture should be used routinely for stroke patients undergoing rehabilitation. Five randomized controlled clinical studies covering results in 368 stroke patients were analyzed. Four studies were done in China, and one in the USA.

Unfortunately, the five studies provided no real evidence of the benefits of acupuncture. They were not well-designed, so that the best that could be said was that there was ‘improvement of global neurological deficit’, but that ‘the results are inconclusive’ and ‘better randomized trials are needed’.

Easier said than done, I suspect. Designing a ‘placebo-controlled’ trial of acupuncture is not easy; it involves giving the placebo patients needle placements in wrong, or inactive sites, as well as persuading the patient (or surrogate decision maker) to sign up for this mildly invasive procedure knowing there’s a 50% chance that it won’t be active! Fortunately, there are virtually no side effects from acupuncture. And there is a fairly large placebo response, although this varies from study to study.