Acupuncture can relieve knee pain due to arthritis, but the benefits may be partly from a placebo effect.
Previous studies have come to inconsistent conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating knee osteoarthritis.
Nine clinical trials conducted in Europe, US and Thailand over 15 years for the treatment of knee arthritis were combined and each trial included a patient group that received acupuncture for knee arthritis, as well as a control group that received standard therapy or sham acupuncture.
Sham acupuncture worked by using non-penetrating needles, or inserting needles only into the superficial layer of skin, at random points rather than the specific points used in real acupuncture. It also involved phoney electrodes and "mock" electrical stimulation of acupuncture points. While keeping the participants ignorant about whether they were receiving the real or the placebo treatment � the placebo effects and the actual affects were established.
Acupuncture generally seemed to improve knee arthritis sufferers' pain and stiffness in the short term. However, the benefits came partly from placebo effect. Simply speaking, the benefits of acupuncture actually providing relief compared with acupuncture doing nothing, were the same.
However, the results do not undermine the efficacy of acupuncture as a reliable mode of treatment. Acupuncture does have a genuine biological effect, and patients can still consider it as a reliable option for treatment.
The various comparisons explain the variable conclusions of earlier trials about the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating knee osteoarthritis. Placebo or expectation effects probably account for the observed benefits of acupuncture for knee arthritis.
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