Alates 2020. a tasub USA ravikindlustus nõelravi eest kroonilise alaseljavalu puhul.
Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain in Older Adults:
A Randomized Clinical Trial (2025 USA)
Key Points
Question Is acupuncture needling (both a standard acupuncture course and additional maintenance sessions) an effective treatment for older adults with chronic low back pain (CLBP)?
Findings In this randomized clinical trial that included 800 older adults with CLBP, acupuncture needling (both a standard course and additional maintenance sessions) improved pain-related disability with CLBP at 6 months and 12 months, with no statistically discernible benefit of additional maintenance sessions.
Meaning These findings suggest that acupuncture needling is an effective and
safe treatment option for older adults with CLBP.
Acupuncture has demonstrated effectiveness for CLBP is recommended by the American College of Physicians guidelines as first-line care for treating CLBP and has an excellent safety profile reported across large studies.
Acupuncture also improves sleep and emotional symptoms,
which are common concerns among older adults with CLBP.
However, no large-scale randomized clinical trials have focused on adults
aged 65 years or older,
and the optimal dose and timing of acupuncture are unknown for older adults.
This 3-arm trial compared
– a standard acupuncture (SA) course
(8-15 sessions across 12 weeks plus usual medical care [UMC]) and
– an enhanced acupuncture (EA) course
(SA plus 4-6 additional sessions across the subsequent 12 weeks) with
– UMC (usual medical care) alone
for improving CLBP-related disability among adults aged 65 years or older.
Participants
Recruited individuals were aged 65 years or older with nonspecific CLBP
(with or without radicular symptoms [sciatica]) persisting for 3 months or longer.
Conclusions
In this randomized clinical trial of older adults with CLBP, acupuncture needling provided greater improvements in CLBP-related dysfunction at a 6-month and 12-month follow-up compared with UMC alone with the advantage of a low-risk profile. These findings support acupuncture needling as an effective and safe treatment option for older adults with CLBP.
Cost-effectiveness of acupuncture needling
for older adults with chronic low back pain
Randomized Controlled Trial (2026 USA)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41493335/
Acupuncture is a recommended first-line non-pharmacological treatment for chronic low-back pain (CLBP) and has been shown to be effective as well as cost-effective for CLBP.
In 2020, Medicare began covering acupuncture for CLBP in older adults.
The purpose of this study was to conduct a full economic evaluation
(cost-utility and cost-effectiveness analyses) of usual medical care (UMC)
compared to UMC plus two different acupuncture protocols for older adults with CLBP.
Both EA and SA reduced non-acupuncture healthcare costs and may be cost-effective as compared with UMC for older adults with CLBP in these three large healthcare systems in California and Washington State.
These findings suggest that EA, and to a lesser extent SA, may provide cost-effective treatment
for CLBP for the healthcare sector and Medicare.
Acupuncture for chronic low back pain in older patients:
a randomized, controlled trial (2003 USA)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12890859/
Rheumatology (Oxford) 2003;42:1508–1517
Conclusions.
Acupuncture is an effective, safe adjunctive treatment for chronicLBP in older patients.
Fewer acupuncture subjects had medication-related side-effects compared with the control group.