Acupuncture for Treating Whiplash Associated Disorder: A Systematic Review of Randomised Clinical Trials

Item

Title

Acupuncture for Treating Whiplash Associated Disorder: A Systematic Review of Randomised Clinical Trials

Author(s)

Journal Publication

Date

2014

volume

2014

pages

870271-

Research Type

Systematic Review

Keywords

Abstract

The aim of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of whiplash associated disorder (WAD). Twenty databases were searched from their inceptions to Oct. 2013. Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of acupuncture (AT), electroacupuncture (EA), or dry needling (DN) for the treatment of WAD were considered eligible. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane tool. Six RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Most of the included RCTs have serious methodological flaws. Four of the RCTs showed effectiveness of AT, AT in addition to usual care (UC), AT in addition to herbal medicine (HM) or EA was more effective than relaxation, sham EA, sham EA in addition to HM or UC for conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and alleviating pain. In one RCT, DN in addition to physiotherapy (PT) had no effect compared to sham-DN in addition to PT for the reduction of pain. None of the RCTs showed that AT/EA/DN was more effective than various types of control groups in reducing disability/function. One RCT did not report between-group comparisons of any outcome measures. The evidence for the effectiveness of AT/EA/DN for the treatment of WAD is limited. Therefore, more research in this area is warranted.

doi

10.1155/2014/870271

View on Pubmed

has health condition studied

Wounds and Injuries

has study population number

0

Item sets