The major goal of this research was to develop a standardized protocol through means of planning treatment by conducting a general statistical analysis on various patients’ symptoms and signs, including also a study of new patients with very major complaints of stiffness shoulder which is a minor acupuncture therapy in the Japanese people according to the identification of the major problem through the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The test was conducted in the participants according to three blood group thesis that included Qi stagnancy (Group-1), Deficiency of Liver-blood (Group-2) and Yin deficiency of Liver and Blood (Group-3). The diagnosis was conducted once in every week for two weeks with acupuncture treatment.
Abstract
Shoulder pain became to be among health problems that many patients recorded when they visited the acupuncture clinic. Many of the individuals who recorded the highest complaints were the women. Due to this constant reports of the shoulder stiffness and chronic dull pain a detailed protocol for the planning treatment was made in order to find out an a more efficient way to improve the acupuncture medical care. Many strategies were used in the treatment of acupuncture diagnosis for stiff shoulder depending on their level of experience after which the results were independently assessed by qualified researchers. According to the statistical analysis and findings after applying treatment to the patients there was a general decrease in the average Visual analog Scale (VAS) scores slowly for the test participants in the experiment. The importance of the research was to come up with a protocol treatment planning for chronic dull pain and shoulder pain. According to the results which were obtained the current study protocol associated with protocol treatment planning for the diagnosis would lead to an improved way of reducing pain for patients who are suffering from shoulder pain and chronic dull pain areas. It will also be an efficient and collect method that will lead to better way of treating patients characterized with stiff neck and shoulder.
Introduction
Shoulder pain has become a crucial problem to the western people where by statistics show that between 7 per cent and 26 per cent of the demography have been reported to complain about neck pain. The acupuncture clinic also acknowledges that a lot of new patients neck and shoulder pain was the highest medical complain with women according 2015 to 2016 statistics toping as the majority affected as compared to men. Majorly chronic dull pain and neck pain is earliest symptom recorded by most women in Japan. Other symptoms which are associated with this health problem are headache, nausea and arm pain which leads to earlier symptom of vervical-omo-brachial syndrome. Hindrance of proper blood circulating in the trapezius and its closest muscles leads to accumulation of waste around the neck and shoulder causing the effect.
The clinical trials that were involved used the paired t- tests in its analysis with comparisons drawn using one – way analysis of variance. Various therapeutic methods and styles were used depending on the level of the acupuncturists through injections on tender points on the neck and shoulders. Acupuncture provides the effective way in the treatment of neck and shoulder pains.
Literature review
Search Strategy
The research question for the literature review was “How has acupuncture treatment has led to successful reduce of chronic dull pain and neck or shoulder pain?” Most of the key words that were obtained using the PICO format included acupuncture, protocol, diagnosis, neck pain and shoulder (Dolder, 2012). Most non-useful, non- wanted and truncation of symbols were utilized at all cost. Most key words were used in the search strategy.
The search strategy was confined to Systematic reviews and Randomised controlled Trials since they are highly ranked in the National Health and Medical Research. Various online databases were searched to find the relevant topic of study. Some of those databases included CINAHL, Medline, EBSCOhost and Medscape (Dolder, 2012).
Methods
The research was recommended by Hospital Ethics Committee. The test participants (patients) comprised of male and female who attached to acupuncture clinic of Suzuka University of Medical Science (SUMS) at Japan who had a lot of complains of chronic dull pain stiffness of neck and shoulder. To avoid data being biased some individuals also were also willing to take part in the experimental analysis signed up as clinical research volunteers to participate in the study. All the results which were obtained from the test were submitted to ethics committee of the Suzuka University of Medical Science (SUMS) after which they were approved. The test was conducted in the test participants according to three blood group thesis that included Qi stagnancy (Group-1), Deficiency of Liver-blood (Group-2) and Yin deficiency of Liver and Blood (Group-3) (Dolder, 2012). The diagnosis was conducted once in every week for two weeks with acupuncture treatment.
In addition to the normal point selection areas such as Group-1 Blood Stasis due to Qi Stagnancy, Group-2 Deficiency of Liver-blood and Group-3 Yin Deficiency of Liver and Kidney others were also added in accordance with Symptomatic Meridians. This comprised of Taiyang Meridian (neck and shoulder), Yangming Meridian (anterior neck and shoulder) and Shaoyang Meridian (lateral neck and shoulder). Also acupoints located mainly around the pathological changes of anatomic sites were used to remove obstruction channels and bring into relaxation of the strained muscles finally. Some of this anatomic sites included musculus semispinalis capitis, musculus rhomboideus minor, musculus supraspinatus and musculus levator scapulae (Dolder, 2012).
UNISCO disposal acupuncture needles with tubes were manually stimulated to these site points. The needles were allowed to stay for 10 minutes after which they were discarded. The magnitude of pain of the neck and the shoulder stiffness was measured using Visual analog scale (VAS) and results recorded for each participant (Dolder, 2012). Data was taken from the samples and analysed using the paired t- tests. Comparisons were evaluated using one-way analysis of variance followed with posthoc Tukey’s multiple comparisons. The Statistical Analysis System (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05 and p<0.01.
Data Analysis
Thirty two patients including those who were sick and the volunteers were used as a sample for the study. In the second test one patient in Group-1, and another two patients in the Group-3 discontinued the study due scheduling problems. Now the remaining twenty nine volunteers remained for the study throughout the exercise, two of which males and twenty seven were females with an average age of 70±16 years old. The average value of the Value Analog Scale values for all participants at a baseline initial consultation gradually decrease after treatment as shown in the figure below, in addition a there is an important decrease at the third consultation when compared to the base line values (p<0.01). .
Discussion
Despite the experiment was conducted safely some limitations are available in the current study. The test participants had their range of years from 23 to 86 years old, this inappropriate agreement of positive effect changes. Close range of ages are required to make conclusion of the protocol. Another limitation is that the study was conducted for a duration of two years, change in temperature in various seasons may distort the patient information leading to poor conclusion. Studies are required to take the short time as possible.
In conclusion despite the existence of limitations of this study we can generally conclude that acupuncture would lead to an effective way relieving chronic dull pain and also reduce neck and shoulder stiffness.
References
Dolder PA, Ferreira PH, Refshauge KN. Effectiveness of soft tissue massage and exercise for the treatment of non-specific shoulder pain: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med 1-12: (2012).
