Acupuncture for Treating Whiplash Associated Disorder: A Systematic Review of Randomised Clinical Trials

The aim of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of whiplash associated disorder (WAD). Twenty databases were searched from their inceptions to Oct. 2013. Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of acupuncture (AT), electroacupuncture (EA), or dry needl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine 2014-01, Vol.2014 (2014), p.1-10
Main Authors: Ernst, Edzard, Kim, Hye-Jung, Park, Tae-Yong, Choi, Tae-Young, Posadzki, Paul, Moon, Tae-Woong, Lee, Myeong Soo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acupuncture
Alternative medicine
Clinical trials
Conditioning
Electroacupuncture
Evidence-based medicine
Feasibility studies
Herbal medicine
Injuries
Neck pain
Pain
Randomization
Review
Skin
Systematic review
Whiplash injuries
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Summary:The aim of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of whiplash associated disorder (WAD). Twenty databases were searched from their inceptions to Oct. 2013. Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of acupuncture (AT), electroacupuncture (EA), or dry needling (DN) for the treatment of WAD were considered eligible. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane tool. Six RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Most of the included RCTs have serious methodological flaws. Four of the RCTs showed effectiveness of AT, AT in addition to usual care (UC), AT in addition to herbal medicine (HM) or EA was more effective than relaxation, sham EA, sham EA in addition to HM or UC for conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and alleviating pain. In one RCT, DN in addition to physiotherapy (PT) had no effect compared to sham-DN in addition to PT for the reduction of pain. None of the RCTs showed that AT/EA/DN was more effective than various types of control groups in reducing disability/function. One RCT did not report between-group comparisons of any outcome measures. The evidence for the effectiveness of AT/EA/DN for the treatment of WAD is limited. Therefore, more research in this area is warranted.
ISSN:1741-427X
1741-4288
DOI:10.1155/2014/870271