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Acupuncture as an adjunct to exercise based physiotherapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE: To investigate the benefit of adding acupuncture to a course of advice and exercise delivered by physiotherapists for pain reduction in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. DESIGN: Multicentre, randomised controlled trial. SETTING: 37 physiotherapy centres accepting primary care patients referred from general practitioners in the Midlands, United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: 352 adults aged 50 or more with a clinical diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis. INTERVENTIONS: Advice and exercise (n=116), advice and exercise plus true acupuncture (n=117), and advice and exercise plus non-penetrating acupuncture (n=119). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was change in scores on the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities osteoarthritis index pain subscale at six months. Secondary outcomes included function, pain intensity, and unpleasantness of pain at two weeks, six weeks, six months, and 12 months. RESULTS: Follow-up rate at six months was 94%. The mean (SD) baseline pain score was 9.2 (3.8). At six months mean reductions in pain were 2.28 (3.8) for advice and exercise, 2.32 (3.6) for advice and exercise plus true acupuncture, and 2.53 (4.2) for advice and exercise plus non-penetrating acupuncture. Mean differences in change scores between advice and exercise alone and each acupuncture group were 0.08 (95% confidence interval -1.0 to 0.9) for advice and exercise plus true acupuncture and 0.25 (-0.8 to 1.3) for advice and exercise plus non-penetrating acupuncture. Similar non-significant differences were seen at other follow-up points. Compared with advice and exercise alone there were small, statistically significant improvements in pain intensity and unpleasantness at two and six weeks for true acupuncture and at all follow-up points for non-penetrating acupuncture. CONCLUSION: The addition of acupuncture to a course of advice and exercise for osteoarthritis of the knee delivered by physiotherapists provided no additional improvement in pain scores. Small benefits in pain intensity and unpleasantness were observed in both acupuncture groups, making it unlikely that this was due to acupuncture needling effects. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN88597683 [controlled-trials.com] .

SUBMITTER: Foster NE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1962890 | biostudies-other | 2007 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Acupuncture as an adjunct to exercise based physiotherapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: randomised controlled trial.

Foster Nadine E NE Thomas Elaine E Barlas Panos P Hill Jonathan C JC Young Julie J Mason Elizabeth E Hay Elaine M EM

BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 20070815 7617

<h4>Objective</h4>To investigate the benefit of adding acupuncture to a course of advice and exercise delivered by physiotherapists for pain reduction in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.<h4>Design</h4>Multicentre, randomised controlled trial.<h4>Setting</h4>37 physiotherapy centres accepting primary care patients referred from general practitioners in the Midlands, United Kingdom.<h4>Participants</h4>352 adults aged 50 or more with a clinical diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis.<h4>Interve ...[more]

PMID: 17699546

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Project description:INTRODUCTION:There is a lack of curative medical treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Acupuncture represents an important alternative therapy. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and preliminary clinical evidence, the patients' acupoints and tender points may become sensitised when the body suffers from a disease state; stimulation of such sensitive points could lead to a disease improvement. It is thus hypothesised that acupuncture at highly sensitised points on patients with KOA would achieve better treatment outcomes than acupuncture at low/non-sensitised points. Previously, we conducted a pilot trial to prove the feasibility of further investigation. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:A three-arm, parallel, multicentre randomised controlled trial of 666 patients will be conducted at four hospitals of China. Eligible patients with KOA who consent to participate will be randomly assigned to a high-sensitisation group (patients receive acupuncture treatment at high-sensitive points), a low/non-sensitisation group (patients receive acupuncture treatment at low/non-sensitive points) or a waiting-list group (patients receive standard acupuncture treatment after the study is concluded) via a central randomisation system using 1:1:1 ratio. The primary outcome is the change of Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index total score from baseline to 16 weeks. Outcome assessors and data analysts will be blinded and participants will be asked not to reveal their allocation to assessors. The outcome analyses will be performed both on the intention-to-treat and per-protocol population. The primary analyses will test if acupuncture at highly sensitised points would achieve statistically better treatment outcomes than acupuncture at low/non-sensitised points and no acupuncture (ie, waiting list), respectively. A small number of prespecified subgroup analyses will be conducted. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:Ethics approval has been granted by the Bioethics Subcommittee of West China Hospital, Sichuan University: 2017 (Number 228). Results will be expected to be published in peer-reviewed journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:NCT03299439.

Project description:BACKGROUND:It is not yet clear which of the various electrophysical modalities used in clinical practice is the one that contributes most positively when added to an exercise program in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). The aim of the present study was to analyze the clinical effects of the inclusion of interferential current therapy (ICT), shortwave diathermy therapy (SDT) and photobiomodulation (PHOTO) into an exercise program in patients with knee OA. METHODS:This prospective, five-arm, randomised, placebo-controlled trial was carried out with blinded participants and examiners. We recruited 100 volunteers aged 40 to 80?years with knee OA. Participants were allocated into five groups: exercise, exercise + placebo, exercise + ICT, exercise + SDT, and exercise + PHOTO. The outcome measures included Western Ontario and McMaster Universities (WOMAC), numerical rating pain scale (NRPS), pressure pain threshold (PPT), self-perceived fatigue and sit-to-stand test (STST), which were evaluated before and after 24 treatment sessions at a frequency of three sessions per week. RESULTS:In all groups, there was a significant improvement (p?<?0.05) in all variables over time, except pressure pain threshold. We observed significant differences (p?<?0.05) between the groups for WOMAC function (exercise vs. exercise + placebo, mean difference [MD]?=?5.55, 95% confidence interval [CI]?=?3.63 to 7.46; exercise vs. exercise + ICT, MD?=?3.40, 95% CI?=?1.46 to 5.33; exercise vs. exercise + SDT, MD?=?4.75, 95% CI?=?1.85 to 7.64; exercise vs. exercise + PHOTO, MD?=?5.45, 95% CI?=?3.12 to 7.77) and WOMAC pain, with better scores achieved by the exercise group. However, these differences were not clinically relevant when considering the minimum clinically important difference. CONCLUSION:The addition of ICT, SDT or PHOTO into an exercise program for individuals with knee OA is not superior to exercise performed in isolation in terms of clinical benefit. clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02636764, registered on March 29, 2014.

Project description:Background Acupuncture is one of the most popular complementary and alternative treatments for knee osteoarthritis (KOA). There are many methods of acupuncture in the treatment of KOA, and the effects are different. According to our clinical observations and researches, it is found that manual acupuncture (MA), electro-acupuncture (EA), and warm acupuncture (WA) are used more frequently in the treatment of KOA, and the curative effects are satisfactory. However, there is currently a lack of efficacy comparison of efficacy between different acupuncture treatments, as well as a lack of standardized clinical research on the acupuncture treatment of KOA. Therefore, we will carry out a high-quality clinical randomized controlled trial to research the effect laws of MA, EA, and WA on KOA. Methods/design A total of 200 eligible participants with KOA will be randomly assigned to group A, B, C, or D in a ratio of 1:1:1:1. Patients in group A will receive MA, while those in group B, group C, and group D will be treated with EA, WA, and sham acupuncture (SA), respectively. Patients will be treated with acupuncture once a day, 30 min per session, 5 sessions per week for 4 weeks. The primary outcome is the change of Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) at week 4. The secondary outcomes include WOMAC, visual analog scale (VAS), Arthritis Quality of Life Measurement Scale Simplified Scale (AIMS2-SF), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Credibility/Expectancy Questionnaire. The evaluation will be performed at baseline and weeks 4, 8, and 12 respectively after randomization. Discussion This is a randomized controlled trial. We will observe the clinical effect of MA, EA, and WA on KOA to research the effect laws of these three acupuncture treatments on KOA and set up standardized treatment programs for acupuncture for KOA. Trial registration China Clinical Trials Registry ChiCTR2100049526. Registered on August 2, 2021 Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-022-06653-7.

Dataset Information

Acupuncture as an adjunct to exercise based physiotherapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: randomised controlled trial.

Publications

Acupuncture as an adjunct to exercise based physiotherapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: randomised controlled trial.

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