The Use of Acupuncture in a Pediatric Chronic Care Setting:Clinical Applications

摘要

Background: Children with disabilities have a complex array of distressing symptoms that decrease their quality of life. Many of the mainstays of modern biomedicine can also impose significant side-effect burdens on patients and their families. There has been a paucity of studies examining acupuncture for reducing the symptom burden on these patients.Materials and Methods: This retrospective case series highlights patients referred for acupuncture or palliative care at Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare, St. Paul, MN. In the past year, 52 unique patients received 136 acupuncture treatments in the clinic or hospital setting. Patients received treatments based upon their backgrounds and presenting complaints along with energetic work, biomechanical treatment (surface release technique, percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation), and/or auriculotherapy.Results: This case series highlights how 9 of the 52 patients with a variety of presentations received benefits from acupuncture.Conclusions: Acupuncture is an effective modality to use for children with pediatric-onset disabilities. It can help to treat the underlying distressing symptoms as well reducing the side-effect burdens of concomitant medical interventions.