| Objective:To treat patients with Tai Yang type neck pain performing acupuncture in two different groups(1 and 2).Both groups will be treated with the same standard treatment,with the only difference being that Treatment 2 will also receive acupuncture in sinew gathering points of Yang meridians of the hand and foot 本神 Ben Shen GB 13 and 颧髎 Quan Liao SI 18,and the jing-well points of hand and foot Tai Yang meridian 少泽 Shao Ze SI 1 and 至阴 Zhi Yin BL 67.Observe and evaluate the therapeutic effect in both treatment groups to compare them in order to clarify if there is any difference or not between them therefore the information gathered can provide a basis for clinical use.Methods:Cervical disorders are a common complaint and contributor to pain and disability nowadays in Spain,and patients visited Fractal Studio Acupuncture in Barcelona so I was enrolled in the study.The design of the study was constructed to consolidate evaluative and treatment criteria.I treated 60 patients randomly with the "red envelope technique" dividing them into twogroups of 30 patients(Treatment 1 and Treatment 2).The patients come from the outpatient department.Most of the treatments,I made them going to the homes of the patients.The rest of the treatments I could do them in my clinic Fractal Studio Acupuncture in Castellbisbal(Barcelona).Inclusion criteria were patients of both genders and ages between 20 and 60 yearsold,whose primary complaint was neck pain with a Chinese medicine diagnosis of Tai Yang neck pain syndrome.Exclusion criteria were patients presenting with red flag conditions to include,but not limited to:cervical fracture,vertebral-basilar artery insufficiency,cervical myelopathy,cancer,inflammatory or systemic disease,and upper cervical ligamentous instability[1].I considered age,gender,level of pain at the beginning and at the end of the wholetreatment,and the duration of the disease as a significant variables for the study.I based the standard of the diagnosis on the differentiation of Chinese and western medicine.Since Tai Yang neck pain can be caused by all of the further mentioned etiology,I decided to exclude these and focus my treatment on the affected Channel(Tai Yang).Both groups used the same acupuncture points,but in the Treatment 2 I added 4 more points,the sinew gathering points of Yang meridians of the hand and foot本神 Ben Shen GB 13 and 颧髎 Quan Liao SI 18,and the jing-well points of hand and foot Tai Yang meridian 少泽 Shao Ze SI 1 and 至阴 Zhi Yin BL 67.Every patient had 10 treatments,1 treatment per day,5 treatments per week,therefore two weeks of treatment in total.Data collection began on the patient’s first scheduled visit using the V.A.S.scale of pain evaluation.V.A.S.was applied to every patient on two different occasions during the course of treatment.Patients were asked to point out their pain perception on a scale from 1 to 10 at the 1st session and at the 10th session,to measure if there is any improvement after the course of treatment.With this procedure we can know two things,first if acupuncture is an effective treatment and second,if there is any statistically difference between the results obtained in Treatment 1 and Treatment 2.In order to be more precise and concrete with results,I made 4 groups of healing degree tomeasure the effectiveness of the two treatments proposed:· A:Total healing 0 points of pain· B:Remarkable improvement:pain has lowered from 5 to 9 points· C:Improvement:pain has lowered from 2 to 4 points· D:Any change observed:pain has lowered 1 or 0 points.Descriptive data were gathered and analyzed using SPSS.using the T test for age,duration of the syndrome,V.A.S before the treatment and V.A.S.after the whole treatment.Chi-square test was used for gender.Finally,Rank-Sum test was used to measure the effectivenes of the treatment comparing the two treatments into four groups of healing degree(A,B,C,D).Results:There was no significant difference in age,gender,and duration of the disease before starting the treatment between the two treatment groups(P>0.05).No difference either in the level of pain at the beginning of the treatment,therefore these two groups can be compared to each other equally.Through the T test,age in this two treatment groups,have no significant difference(t=0.178,P=0.859).Through the T test,the duration of the syndrome in this two treatment groups have no significant difference(t=1.050,P=0.301).Through the Chi-square,in gender,this two treatment groups have no significant difference(χ2=0.067,P=0.796).Through the T test,level of pain before the treatment V.A.S,this two treatment groups have no significant difference(t=1.553,P=0.127).After treatment there was no signficant difference between the two treatment groups in V.A.S.scale of pain(P>0.05).Through the T test in this two separate simple,after the treatment in V.A.S.this two treatment groups have no significant difference(t=1.742,P=0.087)Through the Rank-Sum test in this two separate simple,The EFFECTIVENESS OF THE TREATMENTS in this two treatment group have no significant difference(Z=0.603,P=0.546)Conclusions:Both acupuncture treatments were effective in the treatment of Tai Yang neck pain,having both a quite successful results in the group C(from 2 to 4 points of improvement in the V.A.S.scale)with the amount of 39 patients out of 60.Group B(from 5 to 9 points of improvement in the V.A.S.scale)has taken the second position in the results with the amount of 13 patients out of 60.Group A(0 points of pain,total healing)and group D(Little or no improvement,from 1 to 0 points in the V.A.S.scale)got the same result,4 patients out of 60 each one.Therefore,there is a clear improvement in neck pain patients with acupuncture treatment.I can say that Tratment 1 had slightly better results than Treatment 2(Treatment A:96.67%of improvement;Treatment B:90%of improvement),but not significant enough to confirm that the treatment performed in Treatment 1 is better than the one performed in Treatment 2. |
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