Combination of Acupoints in Treating Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An Apriori Algorithm-Based Association Rule Analysis.

ABSTRACT: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is highly prevalent and a major burden on the healthcare system worldwide. It has a severe impact on patients due to poor health-related quality of life (HRQL), dyspnea, and exertional intolerance. Our previous meta-analysis revealed that body acupuncture therapy had adjuvant benefits of improving HRQL in COPD patients undergoing optimal medical treatment. Previous studies indicated that treatment with combinations of acupoints was more effective than single acupoint treatment. The association rule analysis has been widely used to explore relationships in acupoint combination. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the potential core acupoint combination in COPD treatment by mining the association rules from the retrieved randomized control trials (

SUBMITTER: Hsieh PC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7256717 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature