How Acupuncture is Actually Practised, and Why This Matters to Clinical Research Design
Item
Title
How Acupuncture is Actually Practised, and Why This Matters to Clinical Research Design
Description
EJOM (2010), Cassidy, Claire.
Abstract
When practising acupuncturists are asked to explain what they actually do when delivering acupuncture care, a highly fluid and responsive picture of care emerges. This matches well with the East Asian medical explanatory model of Qi Flow. Their practice model gives approximately equal weight to the patient-practitioner relationship and the delivery of techniques of acupuncture such as needling. Most clinical trials of acupuncture care to date have, however, not utilised these features, but instead imposed a rather static 'sham' control model borrowed from biomedicine, which is guided by a different medical explanatory model and practice habits. Imposing one medical model on another medicine creates a methodological fault of model fit validity – in short, until acupuncture is clinically assessed as it is practised, we cannot know much about its capabilities. The author's hopes are that a) there will be more and larger studies of how acupuncturists think about and deliver care, and that b) future clinical trials will increasingly tend the issue of model fit validity and create trials that accurately assess and reflect the capabilities of acupuncture care.
Alternative Title
EJOM
Creator
Date
Date Created
2/28/2015
Language
English
Type
Journal Article
issn
1351-6647
issue
4
volume
6