Clinical study on acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy for treatment of poststroke shoulder-hand syndrome

Objective To observe therapeutic effect of acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy on post-stroke shoulder-hand syndrome.Methods One hundred and twenty cases of poststroke shoulder-hand syndrome were randomly divided into an acupuncture-rehabilitation group,an acupuncture group and a rehabilitation group,40 cases in each group.The acupuncture-rehabilitation group were treated with acupuncture at Jianyu(LI 15),Jianqian,Jianliao(TE 14),etc.in combination with motor therapy(rehabilitation training),the acupuncture group with simple acupuncture therapy,and the rehabilitation group with simple motor therapy.Upper extremity motor function,pain,joint activity were used for assessment of therapeutic effects.Results The total effective rate of 87.5% in the acupuncture-rehabilitation group was significantly better than 67.5% in the acupuncture group and 65.0% in the rehabilitation group(P0.01);acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy could significantly improve upper limb motor function, pain and joint activity with very significant differences as compared with the acu-puncture group and the rehabilitation group(P0.01).Conclusion Acupuncture combined with rehabilitation therapy has a high cured rate and an obvious therapeutic effect on poststroke shoulder-hand syndrome.