341 - Assessing the Efficacy of Acupuncture on Functional and Pain Outcomes for Patients suffering from Spinal Cord Injuries, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Stroke in Acute Rehabilitation

Objectives: Stroke is the number one leading cause of severe disability and acute inpatient rehabilitation in the US, followed closely by traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and spinal cord injuries (SCI). The total prevalence across all three surpasses 10.45 million people, with an annual incidence of 3 million new cases. Although current guidelines for rehabilitation are effective, obtaining results is often slow and limited. Acupuncture for outpatient post-stroke patients has been shown to help patients obtain significant pain relief and functional improvement with little to no adverse side effects compared to other pain medications or treatments. Past literature guidelines for acupuncture in the acute inpatient setting focused mainly on pain and had inconsistent dosing. This study aims to conduct a literature review assessing the impact of acupuncture on motor function, blood flow, and improving neurologic deficits in the acute inpatient rehabilitation setting.

Design: A review of existing literature using PubMed, MEDLINE, and Cochrane was performed using acupuncture, rehabilitation, inpatient, SCI, TBI, function, recovery, and a combination of these terms. Relevant articles were included.

Results: Multiple RCTs, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis studies of acupuncture treatments in the inpatient setting after stroke, SCI and TBI were reviewed. Acupuncture significantly improved motor scores in patients with SCI, improved dysphagia and cerebral blood flow in post-stroke patients, and improved bladder emptying in patients with TBI. Acupuncture effectively reduced spastic muscle hypertonia in TBI patients, reduced depressive symptoms in stroke patients, and was found to improve pain response for burn victims. No adverse effects were reported. Limitations of these studies were small sample sizes and lack of robust inpatient RCTs.

Conclusions: Acupuncture can potentially attenuate traditional rehabilitation treatment and provide significant functional, psychological, and neurological improvements for patients in the acute rehabilitation setting. Future RCTs are needed to explore the efficacy of acupuncture in establishing standardized dosing and Qi points.