Acupuncture Study Shows Decreased Shoulder Pain

When your arms have to take over the work that your legs used to help you with, overuse quickly leads to chronic shoulder pain. Spinal cord injury (SCI) patients know this all too well. Wheeling a manual chair, transfers, and other activities of daily living can all take their toll. 

While most studies describing treatment for chronic shoulder pain have been done on a population that does not have any type of diagnosis of ongoing disability, research published in October 2007 looked into the use of acupuncture for the treatment of chronic shoulder pain for persons with SCI. Surprisingly, the results showed that both of the groups used for the study had a significant decrease in shoulder pain.

Participants in this study were between the ages of 18 and 70 and experienced shoulder pain for at least three months. All fell within specific guidelines, including being at least one year from their onset of SCI, all using a manual wheelchair as their primary means of getting around, and all being inexperienced with acupuncture. One group of participants was given standard acupuncture therapy, while the other group was given "sham" acupuncture (needles placed in non-acupuncture sites, not placed deep enough, and not manipulated as with legitimate acupuncture). 

The legitimate acupuncture therapy looked to be only slightly superior to sham, which was more successful than could be expected from a regular placebo effect. The sample size was small and the authors suggested further studies be done. They also concluded that the sham therapy they used may have been effective because of defense mechanisms that signal the body to send pain fighters to the area of even the slightest assault.

For more information, refer to "Acupuncture for Chronic Shoulder Pain in Persons With Spinal Cord Injury: A Small-Scale Clinical Trial," Dyson-Hudson, T MD; Kadar, P CA DiplAc DOM; LaFountaine, M MEd ATC/L; Emmons, R MA; Kirshblum, S MD; Tulsky, D PhD; Komaroff, E PhD, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Volume 88, Issue 10, Pages 1276-1283.