Dental anxiety affects up to an estimated 30% of the adult population in countries world-wide. Patients can experience nausea, difficulty breathing and dizziness at the thought of going to the dentist, during an examination, and following treatment.

Reasons behind dental anxiety can be various, such as fear of pain, needles or anaesthetic side effects, as well as embarrassment or feeling a loss of control.

Clinically relevant findings

In a review of six trials with 800 patients, researchers used a points scale to measure anxiety and studies show that anxiety reduced by eight points when dental patients were given acupuncture as a treatment. This level of reduction is considered to be clinically relevant, which means that acupuncture could be a possibility for tackling dental anxiety.

Previous clinical trials have involved acupuncture for treatment on a range of conditions, including lower back pain, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome. There is, however, limited research detailing its impact on specific cases of anxiety.

More than 120 trials across England, China, Spain, Portugal and Germany were identified as having investigated the effects of acupuncture on patients with dental anxiety, and six trials were eligible for review, with two demonstrating high quality methods.

Professor of Acupuncture, Hugh MacPherson, at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences, said: “There is increasing scientific interest in the effectiveness of acupuncture either as a standalone treatment or as an accompanying treatment to more traditional medications.

“We have recently shown, for example, that acupuncture treatment can boost the effectiveness of standard medical care in chronic pain and depression.

But more study welcomed

“Chronic pain is often a symptom of a long-term condition, so to further our understanding of the various uses of acupuncture we wanted to see what it could achieve for conditions that occur suddenly, rapidly and as a reaction to particular experiences.”

Studies that compared anxiety levels between patients that received acupuncture and those that did not, showed a significant difference in anxiety scores during dental treatment. A clinically relevant reduction in anxiety was found when acupuncture was compared with not receiving acupuncture.

No conclusions could be drawn, however, between patients that received acupuncture as an intervention and those that received placebo treatment, suggesting that larger scale controlled trials are needed to increase the robustness of the findings.

Professor MacPherson said: “These are interesting findings, but we need more trials that measure the impact of acupuncture on anxiety before going to the dentist, during treatment and after treatment.

“If acupuncture is to be integrated into dental practices, or for use in other cases of extreme anxiety, then there needs to be more high quality research that demonstrates that it can have a lasting impact on the patient. Early indications look positive, but there is still more work to be done.”

The research is published in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine.

Dental anxiety affects up to an estimated 30% of the adult population in countries world-wide. Patients can experience nausea, difficulty breathing and dizziness at the thought of going to the dentist, during an examination, and following treatment.

Reasons behind dental anxiety can be various, such as fear of pain, needles or anaesthetic side effects, as well as embarrassment or feeling a loss of control.

Now researchers have found evidence that acupuncture could help people who experience dental anxiety.

Previous clinical trials have involved acupuncture for treatment on a range of conditions, including lower back pain, depression, and irritable bowel syndrome. There is, however, limited research detailing its impact on specific cases of anxiety.

Assessing the evidence

The study team identified than 120 trials across England, China, Spain, Portugal and Germany were identified as having investigated the effects of acupuncture on patients with dental anxiety, but the six selected for review were considered to be of particularity high quality.

In a review of these trials, which included 800 patients, researchers used a points scale to measure anxiety and studies show that anxiety reduced by eight points when dental patients were given acupuncture as a treatment. This level of reduction is considered to be clinically relevant, which means that acupuncture could be a possibility for tackling dental anxiety.

Lead author, Professor of Acupuncture, Hugh MacPherson, at the University of York’s Department of Health Sciences, said: “There is increasing scientific interest in the effectiveness of acupuncture either as a standalone treatment or as an accompanying treatment to more traditional medications.

Studies that compared anxiety levels between patients that received auricular (on the ear) acupuncture and those that did not, showed a significant difference in anxiety scores during dental treatment. A clinically relevant reduction in anxiety was found when acupuncture was compared with not receiving acupuncture.

There was only a very small difference between patients that received acupuncture as an intervention and those that received placebo treatment.

Positive findings

Professor MacPherson notes: “These are interesting findings, but we need more trials that measure the impact of acupuncture on anxiety before going to the dentist, during treatment and after treatment.

“If acupuncture is to be integrated into dental practices, or for use in other cases of extreme anxiety, then there needs to be more high quality research that demonstrates that it can have a lasting impact on the patient. Early indications look positive, but there is still more work to be done.”

The research is published in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine.

What is claimed to be the world’s largest randomised controlled trial of the use of acupuncture, was conducted in the emergency departments of four Melbourne hospitals. It showed that in some patients acupuncture was as effective as pain medicine in providing long-term relief for patients who came to emergency in considerable pain.

But say the researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, pain management remains a critical issue, with neither treatment providing adequate immediate relief.

Lead investigator Professor Marc Cohen, from RMIT’s School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, said pain was the most common reason people came to emergency, but was often inadequately managed.

As good as drugs

The study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia and funded by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council, involved 528 patients with acute low back pain, migraine or ankle sprains who presented at the emergency departments of the Alfred Hospital, Cabrini Malvern, Epworth Hospital and Northern Hospital between January 2010 and December 2011.Patients who identified their level of pain as at least 4 on a 10-point scale randomly received one of three types of treatment: acupuncture alone, acupuncture plus pharmacotherapy or pharmacotherapy alone.

One hour after treatment, less than 40% of patients across all three groups felt any significant pain reduction (2 or more pain points), while more than 80% continued to have a pain rating of at least 4.

But 48 hours later, the vast majority found their treatment acceptable, with 82.8 per cent of acupuncture-only patients saying they would probably or definitely repeat their treatment, compared with 80.8 per cent in the combined group, and 78.2 per cent in the pharmacotherapy-only group.

“Some Australian emergency departments already offer acupuncture when trained staff are available but further studies are needed on ways to improve pain management overall in emergency departments, and the potential role for acupuncture in this,” Cohen said.

A need for options

“While acupuncture is widely used by practitioners in community settings for treating pain, it is rarely used in hospital emergency departments,” Cohen said.

“Emergency nurses and doctors need a variety of pain-relieving options when treating patients, given the concerns around opioids such as morphine, which carry the risk of addiction when used long-term.

“Our study has shown acupuncture is a viable alternative, and would be especially beneficial for patients who are unable to take standard pain-relieving drugs because of other medical conditions.

“But it’s clear we need more research overall to develop better medical approaches to pain management, as the study also showed patients initially remained in some pain, no matter what treatment they received.”

Natural Health News — Acupuncture may help to improve the subtle memory loss that precedes the development of dementia, according ot a new review.

Mild cognitive impairment, or MCI for short, is thought to be a transitional state between normal ageing and dementia, whereby the affected person typically exhibits a subtle deterioration in memory capacity beyond what would be expected for his/her age.

Around 5-10% of MCI cases will evolve into dementia every year.

Memory deficits

MCI can be divided into two broad categories: amnestic (AMCI) and non-amnestic. AMCI is characterised by a decline in memory capacity with retention of mostly intact executive functions (functions that require focused attention and reasoning, and help you get things like problem solving and planning done).

Several previous studies have suggested that acupuncture may reduce AMCI symptoms. Now a new analysis of existing data, published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine suggests that the weight of the evidence is positive for acupuncture treatment.

The researchers trawled Western and Chinese research databases for relevant trials comparing acupuncture and medical treatment that had been published up to July 2015.Out of 10 trials, five that involved a total of 568 people, were deemed suitable for inclusion in the study. Three directly compared acupuncture with nimodipine, while two evaluated acupuncture combined with nimodipine.

The number of participants in each study varied from 26 to 94, while acupuncture treatment was provided three to five times a week for 8 weeks in four trials, and for 3 months in one.

Pooling data

Analysis of the pooled data showed that those in receipt of acupuncture fared better than those on nimodipine alone. They also achieved better scores on two of the principal tests used to assess AMCI and dementia: a mini mental state exam and a picture recognition test.

Nimodipine is a calcium channel blocker, originally designed as a treatment for high blood pressure. However it is frequently used to treat memory loss.

Three of the trials reported side effects, which for acupuncture included fainting during treatment and slow bleeding (errhysis) at the needle sites, and for nimodipine included gut symptoms and mild headache.

Results suggested that a combination of acupuncture and nimodipine significantly improved mini mental exam scores when compared to nimodipine alone. Although the researchers remain cautious in their conclusions, the analysis does suggest some benefit from acupuncture as either a stand-alone treatment or in conjunction with conventional approaches.

In addition to the suffering itself, chronic pain can have profound effects on a child’s quality of life, and significant physical, psychological and social consequences. Chronic pain in a child can also impact parents and caregivers by causing feelings of helplessness and inadequacy.

Treating children with chronic pain can be complex, due to kids’ vulnerability while they’re growing and the fear of causing long-term effects. To make matters worse, studies into the therapeutic options for treating children’s pain is limited.

“Effective treatment of pain can be particularly difficult because it’s subjective; but with children, it is increasingly difficult because a child may not be able to communicate effectively depending on the age and accurate recognition of pain,” says Angela Johnson, MSTOM, MPH, practitioner of Chinese medicine of Rush’s Cancer Integrative Medicine Program.

Johnson led a recent study that found that acupuncture may be a safe and effective add-on integrative medicine treatment for chronic pain in children. Results of the study were published in Alternative and Complementary Therapies.

“While acupuncture has been shown to reduce pain in adults, there is very little data on whether it’s effective in children.” Johnson says. “This study looked at the effect of acupuncture in children directly, rather than examining data collected from adults. This focus is especially important, since children experience pain in different ways than adults.”

Not stuck with pain

Chronic pain is pain that lasts weeks, months, or even years, and is estimated to affect 20-35% of children under age 18 worldwide. Although sometimes dismissed as ‘growing pains’, several conditions can cause chronic pain in children include headaches, abdominal pain, back pain, musculoskeletal pain, scoliosis, leukaemia, sports injuries and Crohn’s disease.

The researchers looked at 55 children and adolescents between age 7 and 20 with chronic pain. Each child received up to eight individually tailored acupuncture treatments lasting 30 minutes.

All patients reported significant and progressive declines across all levels of pain throughout the eight-session treatment, with the strongest effects experienced during early treatment. Participants also reported substantial pain reductions from the start to the end of each session. Additionally, patients reported significant reductions in health, emotional, social, and educational problems.

These findings were corroborated by parents’ observations of their children’s pain and behaviour.

“Acupuncture provides an amazing alternative to chronic pain medication. This is especially true for patients who may have to cope with pain for most of their life, including those who have sickle cell anaemia and aftereffects of cancer. In addition it helps with anxiety and depression,” says Paul Kent, MD, co-author of the study and paediatric oncologist at Rush.

This study contributes to the relatively sparse literature on the use of acupuncture in children, and supports the notion that acupuncture can be an effective strategy for managing chronic pain.

“The results of this study suggest that acupuncture can have a profound positive impact on the health and well-being of children who experience the disabling effects of chronic pain,” Johnson says.

She hopes to expand her research to larger groups of children in order to understand more about how acupuncture can help relieve their chronic pain.