Deans' stroke musings: Immediate Effect of Dry Needling at Myofascial Trigger Point on Hand Spasticity in Chronic Post-stroke Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled 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.

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Immediate Effect of Dry Needling at Myofascial Trigger Point on Hand Spasticity in Chronic Post-stroke Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

Jo Murphy of The Murphey Saga has done dry needling and received benefits from it.

Immediate Effect of Dry Needling at Myofascial Trigger Point on Hand Spasticity in Chronic Post-stroke Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

Zengqiao Zhang^1,2^†,

Wu Wang³^†,

Yongjia Song²^†,

Tianjun Zhai²,

Yan Zhu³,

Liming Jiang¹,

Qunfeng Li¹,

Lei Jin⁴,

Kunpeng Li²^* and

Wei Feng^1,2^*

¹Department of Rehabilitation, Seventh People's Hospital of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
²School of Rehabilitation Science, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China
³Department of Neurological Rehabilitation, Shanghai Second Rehabilitation Hospital, Shanghai, China
⁴Department of Rehabilitation, Shanghai Hudong Hospital, Shanghai, China

Background: Hand spasticity after stroke influences the rehabilitation of hand function. Immediate and effective relief of spasticity potentially creates conditions for later rehabilitation training, which has far-reaching significance in the smooth transition of patients to the recovery period.

Objective: To evaluate the immediate effect of dry needling (DN) at myofascial trigger point on hand spasticity in stroke patients.

Methods: This was a prospective, evaluator blind, multicenter, randomized controlled study. A total of 210 participants were randomly divided into DN group (DN, N = 70), sham dry needling group (SDN, N = 70), and control group (N = 70). Participants in the DN group were treated with DN at myofascial trigger point five times (30 min each time) every week for 4 weeks. Subjects in the SDN group were manipulated the same way as in the DN group, except that the acupuncture site was located in the area adjacent to the myofascial trigger point, which constituted a SDN. Routine rehabilitation treatment was performed for participants in the two groups and in the control group. The primary evaluation index was the immediate effect of hand spasticity relief. Secondary evaluation indicators included the cumulative effect of hand spasticity relief from baseline to week 4, and the changes in flexion angles of the wrist, thumb, and fingers 2–5 in the rest position before, immediately after, and 4 weeks after intervention.

Results: The immediate effective rate of spasticity relief (thumb, fingers 2–5, and wrist) of patients with different degrees of spasticity in the DN group was higher than that in the control and SDN groups (thumb, χ² = 55.833, P < 0.001; fingers 2–5, χ² = 68.096, P < 0.001; wrist, χ² = 49.180, P < 0.001) (P < 0.05). The effective rate of spasticity relief from baseline to 4 weeks in the DN group exceeded that in the control group and SDN groups (thumb, χ² = 8.806, P = 0.012; fingers 2–5, χ² = 8.087, P = 0.018; and wrist, χ² = 8.653, P = 0.013) (P < 0.05). No difference in immediate and cumulative effect was found between the control group and SDN group. The change of joints flexion angles in resting position before and after each treatment in the DN group was higher than that in the control and SDN groups (P < 0.05), but it was not significantly different between the control group and SDN group. At 4 weeks, although the change in the DN group was higher than that in the control group and SDN group, this difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05).