Deans' stroke musings: Clinical effects and safety of electroacupuncture for the treatment of post-stroke depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

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.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Clinical effects and safety of electroacupuncture for the treatment of post-stroke depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Oh well, you can google 'electro acpuncture quackery' to see if you believe that or this paper. Up to you. To me this can only be an elaborate placebo effect since energy meridians have never been proven to exist.
http://aim.bmj.com/content/early/2018/05/17/acupmed-2016-011300?rss=1

Xue-bin Li1,2,
Jie Wang

An-ding Xu

Jian-min Huang2,

Lan-Qing Meng

Rui-Ya Huang

Jing Xu4

Author affiliations

Abstract

Objective The aim of this systematic review was to assess the efficacy/effectiveness and safety of electroacupuncture (EA) in the treatment of post-stroke depression (PSD).

Methods A comprehensive literature search in the Pubmed, Embase, CENTRAL, ISI Web of Science, CNKI and Wanfang databases was conducted, and all relevant randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were screened for eligibility by two independent reviewers. The Cochrane Collaboration’s tool and Jadad score were used to assess the risk of bias of included studies, and only RCTs scoring ≥3 were included in a meta-analysis.

Results 18 RCTs involving a total of 813 participants (mean age 61.6 years) in the EA groups and 723 participants (mean age 61.9 years) in the control groups were included. The included studies had an average 3 point Jadad score. PSD was diagnosed according to the Chinese Classification of Cerebrovascular Disease (CCCD) and the Chinese Classification of Mental Disease (CCMD) criteria. There was no significant difference between EA and antidepressants (fluoxetine 10–40 mg/day, citalopram 20 mg/day, sertraline 50 mg/day) in terms of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) scores at week 4 after treatment (standardised mean difference (SMD) −0.11, 95% CI −0.31 to 0.10), at week 6 after treatment (SMD 0.04, 95% CI −0.43 to 0.51) or at week 8 after treatment (SMD −0.01, 95% CI −0.23 to 0.22). However, the combined incidence of adverse events in the EA groups was significantly lower than in the antidepressant groups (RR 0.21, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.33).

Conclusion There was no significant difference between EA and antidepressants in the severity of depression, however EA caused fewer adverse events than antidepressants. Additional larger scale RCTs with rigorous study design are required.