Abstracts des SAR Symposion in Minneapolis

Vom 19. – 20. Oktober 2001 fand im Pillsbury Auditorium, Hennepin County Medical Center, Minnesota das 8. jährliche Symposion der Society of Acupuncture Research statt. 
Das Kongressprogramm war wie 2000 bei dem Symposion in Baltimore hervorragend und fokussierte auf den aktuellen Stand der wissenschaftlichen Forschung zur Akupunktur.
Auch der aktuelle Stand der von den National Institutes of Health geförderten, klinischen Studien wurden in Vorträgen vorgestellt und diskutiert. Wie bereits in den letzten Monaten stellen wir an dieser Stelle die Abstracts des Symposiums als Serie hier ins Netz.
Hier den 11. Teil:

Shilan Zhou
Research Laboratory for Lung Cancer, Shanghai Pneumology Hospital, Shanghai, PR China

This paper is the summary of clinical results of using Acupuncture of Thumb-Joint Acupoint and Fire-Twinkling for 27 cases of Herpes Zoster, a virulent skin disease called "Yao Chan Huo Dan" and "She Du Cang" in traditional Chinese medicine. The condition usually results from decreased immune function, emotional depression, dietary disorder, malfunctional spleen and liver, or virus infection. The course of the illness lasts from two to fifteen days. The purpose of using Acupuncture of Thumb-joint Acupoint locally is to stimulate the infected region, improve the overall body immune system, and thus kill the virus using the body’s own immune functionality. Additionally, the Fire-Twinkling method utilizes the flame’s radiating and heating effect to enlarge local blood vessels, accelerate blood circulation and energize body cells. Treatment involved sterilization of Herpes Zoster with 75% alcohol, and insertion of 1-cun long #30 needles into the Herpes Zoster concentrated area at 25-degree angle, at a depth of 0.7 – 0.8 cun, with 1.5 cun apart between needles. The needles were rotated and twisted during insertion, retained for 30 to 40 minutes, and removed with the same rotating and twisting method. If blisters were clustered together they were pricked with three 3-cun needles and cleansed with medical cotton ball. For the Fire-Twinkling method, 98% alcohol was applied to a medical cotton ball and ignited. The ignited cotton ball was moved swiftly up and down toward the infected area so the flame heated the infected skin but the patient remained comfortable. Under the heat of the flame, the blisters gradually shrank in size until the skin turned dark red. In most cases, the Herpes Zoster became darker, smaller, flatter, and the patient felt less pain the next morning. One treatment was performed per day, with ten such treatments equaling one course of therapy. In most cases, two to three courses of therapy were performed. The outcome of the treatment and observation study showed that Acupuncture

EFFECTIVENESS OF ADHESIVE EAR ACUPRESSURE STRIPS FOR CHRONIC HEADACHE, NECK PAIN AND LOW BACK PAIN
George H Kramer, Frederrick T Strobl, James R Hulbert, Patricia D Culliton
AcuBeads^®, Acupressure System Inc, Hopkins, MN

Purpose: The research examined the short-term effectiveness of three specially designed adhesive ear acupressure strips for the respective relief of headache, neck pain and back pain.

Method: The research is based on a single-group, four-panel, longitudinal survey. One hundred ninety-six participants with headache, neck pain, or low back pain were contacted at an AcuBead® booth at a "Women's Expo" in a large Midwestern city in January, 2001. At the time of the encounters, participants self-reported severity of headache, neck pain, or back pain as well as frequency and duration of their pain. The participants then rated their pain severity level on a 0 to 10 scale before placement of an ear acupressure strip and again at 5 minutes and 30 minutes. Participants were also contacted by telephone after one week, rating their pain one day and one week after application of the strips, as well as overall improvement. Primary analysis involved 12 paired-t analyses of participant-rated change in pain over one week. With the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons, the significance criterion (0.05/12) was p< .004.

Results: Data from 146 (74%) participants indicating chronic pain (pain of one month duration or longer) were analyzed for this research. Change, as evaluated by paired-t modeling of participant change in pain, indicated significant (p< .004) decreases in VAS pain scores after 5 minutes, 30 minutes, one day, and one week for almost all four time periods for the three primary conditions (10 of 12 tests). In secondary, cross-tabular analyses, 80% (113 of 142) of the "chronic" participants noted some improvement in pain at 5 minutes and 89% (102 of 114) reported improvement at 30 minutes, with 61% (70 of 114) of the latter group reporting "good to excellent" results (decreases in severity of 50% or more). At one day and one week, of 71 participants responding to telephone follow-up interviews, 82% (58 of 71) reported decreased pain, with 59% (42 of 71) rating their pain after one day to be half as severe as it was at their initial visit. At the end of one week, 61% (39 of 64) reported improvement, with 41% (26 of 64) indicating the severity of their pain was cut in half.

Conclusion: The evaluation involved a relatively large number of individuals who reported pain of over one month duration prior to their participation. The sample experienced, as a result, a de-facto one-month "natural history" lead-in before receiving acupressure beads. The findings provide strong evidence that adhesive ear acupressure strips offer an effective treatment for headache, neck pain and low back pain in an ambulatory population. Further research is planned, involving a delayed-treatment concurrent control group that will assess more definitively the effect of acupressure beads.