The Therapeutic Effects of Acupuncture on Patients with Chronic Neck Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A Single-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Chronic neck myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is a common disorder seen in clinics. There is no gold standard method to treat myofascial pain. We investigated the effects of acupuncture on patients with chronic neck MPS by a single-blind randomized controlled trial. A total of 35 patients were randomly allocated to an acupuncture group (AG) or a sham acupuncture group (SG). Each subject received acupuncture treatment twice per week for three consecutive weeks. The primary outcome measure was quality of life as assessed with Short Form-36, and secondary outcome measures were neck range of motion (ROM), motion-related pain, and Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ), as determined by a blinded investigator. The clinical assessments were made before treatment (BT) and after six acupuncture treatments (AT), as well as four weeks (F1) and 12 weeks (F2) after the end of the treatment. A total of 34 patients completed the trial. The results indicated that there is no significant difference in the ROM, motion-related pain, and SF-MPQ scores between AG and SG at AT, F1 and F2 (all p > 0.05). However, AG has greater improvement in physical functioning and role emotional of Short Form-36 quality of life at F2. The results indicate that acupuncture may be used to improve the quality of life in patients with chronic neck MPS.

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“…Another open and prospective study found a positive effect of dry needling comparable with physical therapy in deactivation of trigger points (Rayegani et al 2014 ). Acupuncture has also been reported to be partially effective in a controlled study (Sun et al 2010 ).…”

Manual Acupuncture for Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Finally, one study 25 did not report blinding. Three studies 17 20 21 reported part of their results in graphical form, one study 11 reported its results as median (IQR), and three studies [28][29][30] did not report any detailed data with mean±SD. Therefore, these studies were deemed to be at high risk of incomplete outcome data and selective reporting.…”

“…However, they did not experience any increase in pain. Sun et al 11 reported that one patient who received MA developed bruises over the acupuncture point region after the end of the third session. No other study reported any adverse events.…”

“…10 Acupuncture is now recognised as a convenient, safe and effective method, and is commonly used for the treatment of MPS. 11 The efficacy of acupuncture for the treatment of MPS has been evaluated in recent years. 7 12 13 However, due to heterogeneity in the number of sessions and in the location of the stimulus (ie, needling at MTrPs vs traditional acupuncture points), overall the findings remain inconclusive.…”

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“…Treatments of MTrP include manual therapies [1], physical therapy modalities [25], needling therapy (including MTrP injection [26], dry needling [27][28][29], acupuncture [30][31][32], percutaneous soft tissue release [33], and subcutaneous needling [34]), or oral medicine. Eliminating any perpetuating factors and introducing adequate education and home programs to patients are also important [1,35].…”