Acupuncture relieves low back pain for long
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-15 10:50 LONDON - Acupuncture can be effective in treating
patients with low back pain and the benefits seem to improve with time,
according to research published on Friday.
The ancient Chinese treatment, which involves inserting fine needles at
specific meridians of the body, is a popular complementary therapy for a variety
of ailments.
Hugh MacPherson and scientists at the University of York in England said the
benefits of a short course of acupuncture were evident in their study of 241
back pain sufferers.
"If you offer acupuncture to someone with back pain on average it is expected
you are likely to benefit, not just in the short term but particularly in the
longer-term of 12 and especially 24 months," he said in an interview.
"That's a remarkable finding in that normally you would expect the benefit of
the treatment to wear off," MacPherson added.
Low back pain is one of the most common medical complaints. It affects ten of
millions of people and is a leading cause of sick days.
The researchers compared the impact of adding 10 acupuncture sessions over
three months to the normal treatment for back pain, which includes medication,
physiotherapy and exercises.
Patient satisfaction and pain levels were measured and recorded during the
two-year study. After three months there was not too much difference between the
acupuncture group and patients who had the standard therapy.
Weak evidence of improvement in the acupuncture group was found at 12 months,
according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.
By 24 months the difference between the two groups increased.
"This is the first study to show this growing gap up to the two-year point.
It is quite unique in that sense," MacPherson added.
In a separate study in which they looked at the cost of acupuncture, the
researchers found that the additional money spent on the acupuncture treatment
appeared cost effective.
The cost of treating each patient in the acupuncture group was 460 pounds
($863) during the study, compared to 345 pounds ($647) for patients who received
just the standard care.
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