The Comparison Of The Application Of Acupuncture For The Treatmentof Soft Tissue Injuries In China And Overseas

Objective:The aim of this review is to study the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of soft tissue injuries according to researches done by scholars in China and abroad, by summarizing acupuncture’s effect on different kinds of soft tissue injuries, current understanding of the mechanism related, and different ways of treatment, and to compare the treating methods of Chinese and western doctors to find out the differences and similarities.This review is divided into two parts:1-The application of acupuncture treatment of soft tissue injuries by overseas doctors.2-The application of acupuncture treatment of soft tissue injuries in China instructed by traditional Chinese medicine theory.Methods:We searched 8 English-language databases (PUBMED, SPRINGER ACUMED, JOURNAL OF ACUPUNCTURE AND MERIDIAN STUDIES, SCIENCES DIRECT, GROUP BMJ.COM, BIOMED CENTRAL, JOURNAL OF CHINESE MEDICINE, ACSM) and four Chinese databases (CNKI, CQVIP, WANFANGDATA, BAIDUXUESHU), to find published research articles written by Chinese and western acupuncturists. The Keywords used in this search include the word acupuncture in combination with:soft tissue injury, sport injury, sport medicine, performance, low back pain, sprain ankle osteoarthritis, mechanism, physiopathology, effectiveness, side effect.The search was limited to randomized controlled trials, randomized placebo controlled trials, cases reports, animals experiments published in English and Chinese language.Results:81 articles about acupuncture’s effective to soft tissue injury are found on the internet.43 in English and 38 in Chinese.10 of them are literature review,12 of them are mechanism research and 59 of them are clinic study. Nearly half (46.6%) of the clinical studies are about sport injuries.12 of the studies are about acupuncture’s analgesic effect. The most commonly injured tissues are on low back, shoulder, neck, ankle, elbow, knee, and wrist. The methods of needling including normal acupuncture, dry needling, Ashi point with filiform needle, contralateral meridian needling and contralateral collateral needling, collateral bloodletting and cupping, electric acupuncture, acupoint injection, cutaneous needles, auricular acupuncture, scalp acupuncture, wrist-ankle acupuncture, round-sharp needle, acupotomy, laser acupuncture and ultrasound acupuncture.The most common applications of acupuncture to chronic soft tissue injury are low back pain, spinal cord injury caused by soft tissue injuries, painful shoulder, knee osteoarthritis; and the most common applications of acupuncture to acute (sport) soft tissue injury are lumbar strain, tennis elbow, ankle sprain, wrist strain and knee ligament injuries. The internal mechanism of acupuncture’s effect on soft tissue injury is related to 1) analgesic effects; 2) Inhibition of inflammatory response; 3) promotion of the function of bFGF; 4) improvement of blood circulation; 5) promotion of tendon repair.Conclusion:From the articles searched, we can conclude that acupuncture is widely used and accepted in China and abroad, confirmed by the clinical effectiveness for acute and chronic conditions. Although they both use acupuncture to treat soft tissue injury, there are some differences between the Chinese and western doctors.1) Most of the treatments by Chinese doctors based on the TCM theories. They think soft tissue injury belongs to "sinew injury" in TCM, and treat by unblocking the meridians and collaterals and regulating qi and blood. However in western countries, a lot of practitioners do not follow the TCM theories, they pay more attention on anatomy and neurophisiopathology of the injured tissue,and brought about dry needling trigger point theory.2) There is also a big difference in therapeutic tools. Apart from regular filliform needle and electro acupuncture, which are both used in China and western world, the therapeutic tools used by Chinese doctors are more multiple and traditional, like cupping, skin needle, fire needle and round-sharp needle. On the contrary, the western acupuncture practitioners are very creative to apply some new technology in acupuncture like laser acupuncture and ultrasound acupuncture.3) As to acupuncture method, the Chinese doctors use oblique insertion, chicken talon needling, joint needling, ashi points needling, movement needling, contralateral meridian needling and contralateral collateral needling, while the western acupuncture practitioners use it in a much simpler way.by using the acupuncture filiform needling learned from the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory and creating a new concept of dry needling based on modern neuroanatomy science 4) When applying acupuncture to soft tissue, Chinese doctors mainly focus on the clinical treatment, while western acupuncture practitioners also use it in sports field to enhance athlete’s performance in big events and to shorten their recovery time.