The analgesic and disability improvement effects of trigger points electroacupuncture on chronic low back pain patients: an uncontrolled before-and-after study

Abstract

Low back pain (LBP) is the most common cause of disability in patients aged 45 to 65. Traditional medicine plays an important role in the treatment of this disease. Especially, electroacupuncture at 100 Hz is effective in the improvement of pain and symptoms. In addition, clinical and research evidence shows that trigger points acupuncture is effective in LBP treatment. However, these studies have small sample sizes, so their reliability is not high. Thus, our study aims to evaluate the effect of trigger points electroacupuncture (TrP-EA) at 100 Hz on chronic LBP patients with larger sample sizes. 37 patients diagnosed with chronic LBP received TrP-EA at 100 Hz for 4 weeks. Outcome measures were the visual analogue scale (VAS), roland morris questionnaire (RMQ), and Oswestry low back pain disability index (ODI). Compared with the pre-treatment baseline, VAS, RMQ, and ODI improved dramatically after 1 week of treatment (p<0.01), 2 weeks of treatment (p<0.01), 3 weeks of treatment (p<0.01) and 4 weeks of treatment (p<0.01). The results suggest that TrP-EA at 100 Hz had analgesic efficacy and may have the potential to improve disability in patients with chronic LBP.