Effects of anterior sciatic nerve acupuncture on lower limb paralysis after cerebral infarction: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Stroke is the main cause of disability in the middle and old age. Hemiplegia, especially lower limb paralysis, often leads to the loss of self-care ability and a series of secondary injuries. The main method to improve hemiplegic limb movement is exercise therapy, but there are still many patients with disabilities after rehabilitation treatment. As one of the non-pharmacological therapies for stroke, acupuncture has been recognized to improve motor function in patients. Here, we propose a new method, anterior sciatic nerve acupuncture, which can stimulate both the femoral nerve and the sciatic nerve. We designed this study to determine the effect of this method on lower limb motor function. Sixty participants recruited with hemiplegia after cerebral infarction will be randomly assigned to the test group or control group in a 1:1 ratio. The control group will receive Xingnao Kaiqiao acupuncture, and the test group will receive anterior sciatic nerve acupuncture on this basis. All participants will get acupuncture treatment once a day, 6 times a week for 2 weeks. The primary outcome is Fugl-Meyer Assessment of Lower Extremity and the secondary outcomes are Modified Ashworth Scale and Modified Barthel Index. Data will be collected before treatment, 1 week after treatment, and 2 weeks after treatment, and then statistical analysis will be performed. This study can preliminarily verify the effect of anterior sciatic nerve acupuncture on improving lower limb motor function in patients with cerebral infarction, which may provide an alternative approach for clinical treatment of hemiplegia.

Therapeutic effects of Jinqi Jiangtang tablet on women with polycystic ovary syndrome / 中西医结合学报

OBJECTIVE: To observe the therapeutic effects of Jinqi Jiangtang Tablet (JQJTT), a commonly prescribed recipe for type 2 diabetes in traditional Chinese medicine, on obese women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). METHODS: Twenty-four obese women with PCOS were prescribed JQJTT for 3 months and the changes of carbohydrate metabolism and biochemical indicators, including menstrual cycle, body mass index (BMI), the level of blood sex hormone, area under curve (AUC) of glucose and insulin during oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), and testosterone responses during human chorionic gonadotrophin stimulation ovary test were observed. RESULTS: After treatment, there were significantly reductions in BMI (P<0.05), serum glucose level at 30 min during OGTT (P<0.05) and testosterone levels at eighteen hours during human chorionic gonadotrophin stimulation ovary test (P<0.05). In addition, nine patients had improved cycles among sixteen completed patients, and one patient with clomifene resistance got pregnant with response to clomifene treatment. CONCLUSION: The beneficial effects of JQJTT may result from improvement of carbohydrate metabolism and reduction in androgen biosynthesis in women with PCOS.