Deans' stroke musings: Clinical evaluation of acupuncture as treatment for complications of cerebrovascular accidents: A randomized, sham-controlled, subject- and assessor-blind trial

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Clinical evaluation of acupuncture as treatment for complications of cerebrovascular accidents: A randomized, sham-controlled, subject- and assessor-blind trial

How the hell can acupuncture have any mechanism of action? Except as placebo? There is no proof that energy meridians exist.
https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/medical-news-article/2017/03/24/cerebrovascular-accidents/7100984/?

Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Liao HY, et al.

The objective of the study described in this paper was to research the impact of acupuncture as a treatment for poststroke complications. The outcome of this study suggests acupuncture provided more effective poststroke pain relief than sham acupuncture treatment. However, acupuncture had no better impact on neurological, functional, and psychological improvement.

Methods

Patients with first–time acute stroke were enrolled in this study.
Participants were randomized to receive 24 sessions of either real or sham acupuncture amid an eight–week period.
The primary outcome measure was change in National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score.
Secondary outcome measures included changes in Barthel Index (BI), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM–D), and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for pain scores.

Results

Out of 52 patients who were randomized to receive acupuncture (n = 28) or placebo (n = 24), 10 patients in the acupuncture group and 9 patients in the placebo group failed to finish the treatment.
In this study, total 18 patients in the acupuncture group and 15 patients in the control group finished the treatment course.
Reduction in pain was significantly greater in the acupuncture group than in the control group (p value = 0.04).
They found there were no important differences in the other measures between the two groups.