Acupressure for frail older people in community dwellings-a randomised controlled trial.

Background: 'Frailty' is being increasing recognised as a geriatric syndrome of growing importance in the medical field. Acupressure is a non-pharmacological, non-invasive Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) treatment, which may serve to improve the quality of life (QOL) or prevent the progressive advancement of frailty in the aged population. Objective: to investigate the effects of a 12-week, TCM-principle guided acupressure intervention on the QOL of the frail older people living in the community. Methods: this is a randomised controlled trial with waitlist control design. Treatment group received 15 min of acupressure treatment, four times a week from both TCM practitioners and trained caregivers for 12 consecutive weeks. The waitlist control group served as a care-as-usual comparison to the treatment group for the 1st 12 weeks and then received the same treatment. Intention-to-treat principle was followed and mixed-effects models were used for data analysis. Results: the mean age of the participants was 76.12 ± 7.08, with a mean Tilburg frailty index score of 7.13 ± 1.76. Significant between-group differences were found in the change of physical domain score of WHOQOL-BREF (P = 0.001); change of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (P < 0.001) and pain intensity (P = 0.006) with the treatment group demonstrating greater improvement. Within-group effect size analysis also indicated that the acupressure protocol has significant impact on these areas. Conclusions: the study's outcomes indicated that the acupressure protocol, when applied continuously for 12 weeks, 3-4 times a week, could improve the general QOL of frail older people living in community dwellings.

Tian jiu therapy for the treatment of asthma in adult patients: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To review and evaluate the efficacy and safety of tian jiu therapy on san fu tian for adults with asthma. METHODS: A literature search through August 31, 2013, was done to identify comparative studies evaluating effective rate, pulmonary function, immune response, recurrence rate, quality of life, and adverse events. The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure were searched; only randomized controlled trials with treatment groups using tian jiu therapy were included. Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool and Review Manager software, version 5.2, were used for the data synthesis. RESULTS: Six studies involving 657 patients were identified. tian jiu therapy was more effective than the control intervention (odds ratio [OR], 3.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.05-6.00; p<0.00001; I(2)=18%). The treatment group had a bigger decrease in IgE level (standard mean difference [SMD], -1.40; 95% CI, -2.18 to -0.63; p=0.0004; I(2)=85%) and Eosinophil (Eos) level (SMD, -4.26; 95% CI, -6.28 to -2.23; p<0.00001; I(2)=91%) compared with the control group. Included studies had a high risk of bias. Few adverse effects were reported in the included studies, and no serious adverse responses occurred. Adverse effects did not result in any dropouts. CONCLUSIONS: All studies indicated that tian jiu therapy has a positive effect on adults with asthma and that it is relatively safe because of its noninvasive nature. However, the limitations of the research design of the existing studies resulted in high risk of bias. More randomized controlled trials of better methodologic quality are needed to further confirm efficacy and safety of this therapy.

Two Years versus One Year of Tianjiu Therapy in Sanfu Days for Chronic Asthma: A Clinical Efficacy Observation Trial.

Background. Tianjiu therapy has established efficacy against chronic asthma with related symptoms or the medication need during asthma attack. This study aimed to explore the optimal duration of Tianjiu therapy for asthma. Methods. This study was a self-comparison-to-the-baseline study, which comparing treatment with Tianjiu therapy for 1 year and 2 years in the same 102 chronic asthma patients. Totally 6 sessions of Tianjiu treatment were provided, 3 sessions in a year as a course of treatment and totally two years treatment. The primary endpoint was the number of asthma related symptoms which frequently appeared in asthma patients and the frequency of bronchodilator used during asthma attack. Results. The frequency of bronchodilator used during asthma attack significantly improved (χ (2) = 46.276, P = 0.000). But the number of asthma related symptoms which frequently appeared in asthma patients added by 1.38 points (95% CI, 0.25 to 2.51), 2.93 ± 0.41 in 1-year group and 4.31 ± 0.41 in the 2-years group (P < 0.05). Conclusions. The effect of 2 years Tianjiu therapy was not as effective as 1 year such treatment for asthma, but the second year Tianjiu therapy was still needed because it has a role to consolidate the curative effect of Tianjiu therapy for asthma.

Wrist-ankle acupuncture for the treatment of pain symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Routine acupuncture incorporates wrist-ankle acupuncture (WAA) for its analgesic effect, but WAA is not widely used in clinics due to incomplete knowledge of its effectiveness and concerns about less clinical research and because less people know it. This study aimed to assess the efficacy and possible adverse effects of WAA or WAA adjuvants in the treatment of pain symptoms. This study compared WAA or WAA adjuvant with the following therapies: western medication (WM), sham acupuncture (SA), or body acupuncture (BA). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were searched systematically in related electronic databases by two independent reviewers. 33 RCTs were finally included, in which 7 RCTs were selected for meta-analysis. It was found that WAA or WAA adjuvant was significantly more effective than WM, SA, or BA in pain relief. There was nothing different between WAA and SA in adverse events, but WAA was marginally significantly safer than WM. Although both WAA and WAA adjuvant appeared to be more effective than WM, SA, or BA in the treatment of pain symptoms with few side effects, further studies with better and more rigorously designed are still necessary to ensure the efficacy and safety issue of WAA due to the poor methodology and small sample size of previous studies.