It was a randomized and blinded trial conducted across 340 practices in Germany involving 1162 adults who had suffered from lower back pain for an average of 8 years. Patients were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: verum acupuncture, sham acupuncture or conventional therapy. After 6 months, nearly half of the patients receiving acupuncture treatment showed significant improvements in back pain compared to about one-quarter receiving conventional treatment.
The finding has led to acupuncture being adopted in Germany as a covered benefit for chronic lower back pain treatment under statutory health insurance plans.
Source: "German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for Chronic Low Back Pain - Randomized, Multicenter, Blinded, Parallel-Group Trial With 3 Groups , Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:1892-1898 (Sept 27)
Read previous post on "Alternative medicine in the US medical curriculm" and the cut back on using complementary therapies in the UK.
1 comment:
Great sharing this.
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