Acupuncture and Stroke Recovery. Part 2
The winnowing down of 664 studies to a mere 10 that compared “real” to "sham” acupuncture may have selected for criteria that excluded studies that may have shown real and positive effects.
It may also be indicative of selection bias. For example, 18 studies used animals, 52 were uncontrolled trials, and 172 were excluded because they did not use sham or placebo control. One hundred twenty-one studies compared 2 different types of acupuncture treatment. It is possible that some of these studies may have demonstrated more favorable effects.
For example, in 1997, researchers Hopwood and Lewith published a preliminary study of 6 patients who had suffered strokes within 3 months of acupuncture treatment.2 Each patient was treated daily for 2 weeks with electroacupuncture, with a 2-week crossover period during which the patients were treated with placebo electrotherapy. A consistent rise in motor function as assessed by the Motricity Index was observed after the electroacupuncture treatments, leading the authors to conclude that acupuncture can have salutary effects on patients recovering from stroke.
It is notable that while the study authors did not find statistical significance to the results of their analysis, specific analyses of activities of daily living showed a slight trend toward improvement favoring those treated with real acupuncture versus sham acupuncture.
While this is an exhaustive overview of studies evaluating the effects of acupuncture on post-stroke recovery and an important study in the field, clearly more research is needed, especially where patients are offered treatment as close to their stroke as possible.