Acupuncture treatment for knee osteoarthritis with sensitive points: protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

There is a lack of curative medical treatment for patients with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Acupuncture represents an important alternative therapy. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and preliminary clinical evidence, the patients' acupoints and tender points may become sensitised when the body suffers from a disease state; stimulation of such sensitive points could lead to a disease improvement. It is thus hypothesised that acupuncture at highly sensitised points on patients with KOA would achieve better treatment outcomes than acupuncture at low/non-sensitised points. Previously, we conducted a pilot trial to prove the feasibility of further investigation.

Methods and analysis

A three-arm, parallel, multicentre randomised controlled trial

SUBMITTER: Tang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6169759 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature