Acupuncture Awareness Week

The first week of March is Acupuncture Awareness week.

Acupuncture is one of the many skills employed within physiotherapy as part of an integrated approach to the management of pain and inflammation. Physiotherapists base their treatments on scientific research and clinical evidence that Acupuncture can reduce pain by stimulating the brain and spinal cord to produce natural pain-relieving chemicals such as endorphins, melatonin (which promotes sleep) and serotonin (to promote well-being), to name but a few. These chemicals assist the body’s healing processes and offer pain relief as a precursor to other treatments such as manual therapy or exercise in order to aid recovery (AACP, 2015).

Currently there is evidence that acupuncture is not only significantly better than no intervention, but also significantly better than standard best medical care in the treatment of chronic non-specific low back pain (NICE, 2009).

There is also evidence that acupuncture is beneficial for the treatment of tension-type headaches and migraines (NICE, 2012; SIGN, 2003). SIGN (2013) also support the use of acupuncture in the management of chronic pain and osteoarthritis. There is also evidence that acupuncture is beneficial for musculoskeletal pain and women’s health (AACP, 2015).

Our physiotherapists at the HealthHub are trained to treat patients with acupuncture and would be happy to discuss the use of this alongside other treatment options.

Originally posted by Wendy 2nd March 2015