A study has shown that oriental acupuncture treatment reduces the aftereffects of cerebral hemorrhage and has a high function recovery effect.
Professor Seong-wook Park of the Department of Oriental Internal Medicine and Neurosurgery at Kangdong Kyung Hee University Hospital published a report in the International Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine that acupuncture had confirmed the preventive effect of acupuncture on cerebrovascular spasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage. .
The subjects of this study were 46 patients who underwent ligation or coil aneurysm occlusion within 96 hours of the onset of subarachnoid hemorrhage.
They were randomly assigned to acupuncture, electric acupuncture, intradermal acupuncture treatment group (22 patients) and sham treatment group (24 patients), and were treated 6 times a week from immediately after surgery for a total of 2 weeks to compare the effects. Both groups performed the same standard neurosurgery treatment.
The primary evaluation items were delayed ischemic neurological defects, and the secondary evaluation items were the incidence of angiographic vasospasm, the incidence of cerebral infarction following cerebrovascular spasms, the degree of dysfunction, and mortality.
As a result of the evaluation, complications were small and functional recovery was good in the acupuncture group. There were also fewer neurological defects (9.1% vs. 20.8%) and vasospasm (9.1% vs. 25.0%). The incidence of cerebral infarction (4.5% vs. 16.7%) and dysfunction due to vasospasm were also lower in the acupuncture group.
In particular, in a reevaluation two weeks after the end of treatment, the gap in function recovery between the two groups widened further, confirming that the acupuncture treatment effect continued.
Professor Park Seong-wook said, “This study is the first clinical study in the world to confirm that acupuncture treatment has the potential to prevent cerebrovascular spasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage.” “It seems that it can be of practical help to patients and caregivers while reducing and speeding up recovery.”
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