Can acupuncture help patients with limb paralysis caused by traumatic brain injury? A new study suggests it has promising potential.
Published in the Chinese journal Zhen Ci Yan Jiu (Acupuncture Research), the study included 70 TBI patients divided into a medication group and an acupuncture plus medication group. The goal of the study: "to observe the clinical effect of early acupuncture treatment of limb paralysis in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and changes of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF) levels, so as to explore its mechanism underlying improvement of TBI."
Beginning 72 hours after TBI, one group received acupuncture on the affected side, "applied to main points [such]as Fenglong (ST40), Zusanli (ST36), Guanyuan (CV4), Baihui (GV20), Shuigou (GV26) and Fengchi (GB20), etc.," once daily for 28 days (four six-day cycles with one-day breaks).
Researchers evaluated neurological deficit severity with the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), and ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) ability using the simplified Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) scale and modified Barthel Index (BI), finding:
"The therapeutic effect of acupuncture plus medication was obviously superior to that of simple medication in lowering focal injured volume on day 14 and 28, and in increasing FMA and ADL-BI scores on day 28 and 60. ... The therapeutic effect of acupuncture plus medication was [also] evidently superior to that of simple medication in lowering IL-6 on day 3 and 7, and in increasing BDNF and NGF levels on day 3, 7 and 14."
The researchers concluded: "Early acupuncture treatment can significantly improve the TBI patient's limb motor function and daily life activities, which may be related [to] its effects in reducing the inflammation and increasing BDNF and NGF levels."
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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