Low Back Pain-Complex Approach of Treatment by Different CAM Modalities (Acupuncture and Other Types of Dry Needling, “Targeted RF Noninvasive Physiotherapy” for Low Back Pain)
For at least 2,500 years, acupuncture has been an integral part of the traditional Chinese medicine. Recently, more people are diagnosed with chronic disease, and many of them are poorly treated with conventional therapies. Those frequently prefer other forms of complementary medical treatments. Based on the theory of homeostatic equilibrium being the basis of health, acupuncture focuses on restoring the homeostasis by manipulation of the complementary and opposing elements of yin and yang. It is possible that by affecting afferent nerve signaling, acupuncture may influence the release of endogenous opioids to promote pain relief. Our objective is giving western trained physicians clinical applications together with acupuncture and modern physiotherapeutic equipment (booster) to accommodate accelerating interests in acupuncture and related techniques in modern complex treatment of chronic low back pain. In recent prospective phase I/II study, statistical data verified the relevant end points of the study: the safety, the quality of life (QoL), the rest time, duration of painless state, and cost/benefit ratio. 1. Introduction Thirty-five RCTs covering 2861 patients were included in a systematic review [1]. There was insufficient evidence to make any recommendations about acupuncture or dry needling for acute low back pain, but for chronic low back pain, results showed that acupuncture is more effective for pain relief than no treatment or sham treatment, in measurements taken up to three months. The results also showed that for chronic low back pain, acupuncture is more effective for improving function than no treatment, in the short term [2]. Acupuncture is not more effective than other conventional and “alternative” treatments. When different types of acupuncture were added to other conventional therapies, they relieved pain and improved function better than the conventional therapies alone with less intake pharmacologic substances and side effects of them. We were going to apply in our randomized pilot study more complementary and alternative methods (CAMs) treatments for low back pain and evaluate their effect on visual analogue scale (VAS) and quality of life (QoL) of patients [3]. CAM modalities, including “dry needling,” lately improved noninvasive RF therapy appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain with life-style management individually developed. (“Personalized medicine”). Although chronic low-back pain is usually a self-limiting and benign disease that tends to improve spontaneously over time, a large variety
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