Active ear acupuncture points in neonates: initial results in a new research field
Item
Title
Active ear acupuncture points in neonates: initial results in a new research field
Description
Med Acupunct (2018), Stadler, Jasmin
Abstract
Background: little is known about active ear acupuncture points (EAP) in neonates. Previous unblinded studies by stahler van amerongen et al. showed that neonates have detectable active EAP, and that sick neonates could have more EAP relative to healthy neonates. EAP was investigated in an unblinded trial involving neonates with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). Furthermore, a blinded, controlled observational trial was conducted to compare active EAP present in healthy neonates with EAP of sick neonates. Materials and methods: an electrical point search device (PS3, silberbauer, vienna, austria) was used to detect EAP. Active EAP were detected with an integrated optical and acoustical signal, and readings were transferred to a standardized ear map. A mann-whitney-u test and spearman's correlation were used for statistical analysis. Results: a total of 94 neonates were enrolled across both trials. EAP were detectable in all healthy and sick neonates. In the blinded trial, sick neonates had a significantly higher number of active EAP than did healthy neonates. Conclusions: a notable difference in the number of active EAP was detected between healthy and sick neonates. More trials with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm the diagnostic power of EAP in neonates.
Alternative Title
Med Acupunct
Creator
Date
Language
English
Source
doi
10.1089/acu.2018.1277
issn
1933-6586
issue
3
page end
158
page start
155
volume
30