Our findings suggest that there is great inter-individual variability between practitioners, but remarkable intra-individual consistency within each practitioner.

ObjectiveHumans can acquire a wide variety of motor skills using sensory feedback pertaining to discrepancies between intended and actual movements. Acupuncture needle manipulation involves sophisticated hand movements and represents a fundamental skill for acupuncturists. We investigated whether untrained students could improve their motor performance during acupuncture needle manipulation using visual feedback (VF).MethodsTwenty-one untrained medical students were included, randomly divided into concurrent (n = 10) and post-trial (n = 11) VF groups. Both groups were trained in simple lift/thrusting techniques during session 1, and in complicated lift/thrusting techniques in session 2 (eight training trials per session). We compared the motion patterns and error magnitudes of pre- and post-training tests.ResultsDuring motion pattern analysis, both the concurrent and post-trial VF groups exhibited greater improvements in motion patterns during the complicated lifting/thrusting session. In the magnitude error analysis, both groups also exhibited reduced error magnitudes during the simple lifting/thrusting session. For the training period, the concurrent VF group exhibited reduced error magnitudes across all training trials, whereas the post-trial VF group was characterized by greater error magnitudes during initial trials, which gradually reduced during later trials.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that novices can improve the sophisticated hand movements required for acupuncture needle manipulation using sensorimotor learning with VF. Use of two types of VF can be beneficial for untrained students in terms of learning how to manipulate acupuncture needles, using either automatic or cognitive processes.

Bee venom treatment demonstrates the potential to become an effective treatment for postherpetic neuralgia. Further large-sample clinical trials should be conducted to evaluate the overall safety and efficacy of this treatment.

No abstract

IntroductionThe pragmatic design has received much attention in the field of acupuncture clinical trials because of insufficient information about the specific effects of acupuncture. However, pragmatism in pragmatic acupuncture trials has not been comprehensively investigated. The PRECIS-2 tool was developed and has been gradually used to design pragmatic trials; therefore, we will apply the PRECIS-2 tool to investigate the pragmatism of pragmatic acupuncture trials in this study.Methods and analysisIn this systematic review, self-declared ‘pragmatic’ randomised clinical trials (RCTs) or protocols of self-declared ‘pragmatic’ RCTs investigating acupuncture will be searched and included to be reviewed. MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register for Controlled Trials, CINAHL, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database (AMED), China National Knowledge Infrastructure, VIP, WANFANG, Taiwan Periodical Literature Database, KoreaMed, KMbase, Research Information Service System, Oriental Medicine Advanced Searching Integrated System, CiNii and ClinicalTrials.gov for registered trials will be electronically searched from inception to March 2022. Protocols of published RCTs or secondary analysis of RCTs will be excluded. Additionally, no language restriction will be applied. Two authors will independently extract descriptive information and assess the pragmatism of pragmatic acupuncture trials using nine domains of the PRECIS-2 tool and one additional domain—control. Descriptive statistics will be reported for each domain and the overall score, and a one-sample t-test will be used to statistically analyse whether the score is greater than 3 (equally pragmatic and explanatory). The wheel diagrams of the nine domains of the PRECIS-2 tool will be used to demonstrate the pragmatism of the included studies.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval is not warranted as this study will obtain data from previously reported articles. The results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and conferences.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42021236975.