Acupuncture in Stroke Rehabilitation?
Stroke patients suffer from many symptoms, including spasticity, difficulty swallowing, imbalance, and memory loss. Fortunately, acupuncture (particularly electroacupuncture) has proven itself as a relatively safe and effective therapy to help with stroke rehabilitation. In the right hands, acupuncture offers many benefits, such as increasing muscle strength, reducing spasticity, and improving the brain functioning.
Based on modern research, it appears that acupuncture works by increasing blood flow to injured areas and alleviating oxidative stress in the brain. There is even some evidence that scalp acupuncture may help people with paralysis recover some motor function.
The sooner one starts rehabilitation, the more likely she is to regain lost abilities and skills. If you or your loved one would like to try acupuncture, please contact my office.
References
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Chavez, L. M., Huang, S. S., MacDonald, I., Lin, J. G., Lee, Y. C., & Chen, Y. H. (2017). Mechanisms of Acupuncture Therapy in Ischemic Stroke Rehabilitation: A Literature Review of Basic Studies. International journal of molecular sciences, 18(11), 2270. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms18112270
Lu, Y., Chen, Y., Huang, D., & Li, J. (2021). Efficacy of acupuncture for dysphagia after stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of palliative medicine, 10(3), 3410–3422. https://doi.org/10.21037/apm-21-499
Su, X. T., Wang, L., Ma, S. M., Cao, Y., Yang, N. N., Lin, L. L., Fisher, M., Yang, J. W., & Liu, C. Z. (2020). Mechanisms of Acupuncture in the Regulation of Oxidative Stress in Treating Ischemic Stroke. Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity, 2020, 7875396. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/7875396