Acupuncture and Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain
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COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE (S KOLASINSKI, SECTION EDITOR)
Acupuncture and Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain YuJuan Zhang 1 & Chenchen Wang 2 Accepted: 4 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review Chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) attributable to conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic low back pain is the most common cause of disability globally, for which no effective remedy exists. Although acupuncture is one of the most popular sensory stimulation therapies and is widely used in numerous pain conditions, its efficacy remains controversial. This review summarizes and expands upon the current research on the therapeutic properties of acupuncture for patients with CMP to better inform clinical decision-making and develop patient-focused treatments. Recent Findings We examined 16 review articles and 11 randomized controlled trials published in the last 5 years on the clinical efficacy of acupuncture in adults with CMP conditions. The available evidence suggests that acupuncture does have short-term pain relief benefits for patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis and chronic low back pain and is a safe and reasonable referral option. Acupuncture may also have a beneficial role for fibromyalgia. However, the available evidence does not support the use of acupuncture for treating hip osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Summary The majority of studies concluded the superiority of short-term analgesic effects over various controls and suggested that acupuncture may be efficacious for CMP. These reported benefits should be verified in more high-quality randomized controlled trials. Keywords Chronic musculoskeletal pain . Fibromyalgia . Rheumatoid arthritis . Osteoarthritis . Acupuncture . Treatment . Alternative medicine . Complementary medicine
Introduction Chronic musculoskeletal pain attributable to conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic low back pain is the most common cause of disability with significant economical and societal implications globally [1–3]. Despite this critical public health burden, no effective medical treatments exist for these chronic pain conditions. The This article is part of the Topical Collection on Complementary and Alternative Medicine * Chenchen Wang [email protected] YuJuan Zhang [email protected] 1
Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Tufts Children’s Hospital, Tufts Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, 800 Washington Street, Box 190, Boston, MA 02111, USA
2
Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Tufts Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, 800 Washington Street, Box 406, Boston, MA 02111, USA
current care offered to patients with chronic pain is inadequate with treatment largely consisting of pharmacological analgesics that have known toxicities [4, 5]. Finding new and effective interdisciplinary treatments to alleviate
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