Previously submitted to: JMIR Research Protocols (no longer under consideration since Mar 20, 2019)
Date Submitted: Mar 18, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 20, 2019 - Mar 20, 2019
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Electroacupuncture frequency-related effects on chronic low back pain in older adults: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
Background:
Low back pain is the most frequent complaint in the clinical practice. Electroacupuncture treatment may be effective, however, the evidence supporting this possibility is still limited, especially in older adults.
Objective:
This study aims to evaluate the therapeutic effect of different frequencies of electroacupuncture for chronic low back pain in older adults.
Methods:
A five-arm randomized controlled trial with patients and evaluators blinded to the group allocation. A total of 125 participants with non-specific low back pain will be randomly assigned into one of five groups: three electroacupuncture groups (low, high and alternating frequency), a control and a placebo group. The electroacupuncture will be applied twice a week (30 minutes per session) for 5 weeks. The primary clinical outcome will be pain intensity. The secondary outcomes include: quality of pain, physical functioning, perceived overall effect, emotional functionality, patient satisfaction and psychosocial factors. Patients will be evaluated before the first session, immediately after the last, and followed-up after 6 and 12 months to check the effects in the medium and long term.
Results:
We will recruit 125 participants with non-specific low back pain from January 2019 to October 2019 or until the recruitment process is complete. The final follow-up will be completed in October 2020. We expect all trial results to be available by the end of 2020.
Conclusions:
This is the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of different frequencies of electroacupuncture for chronic low back pain in older adults. We expect to screen a dominant electroacupuncture frequency on low back pain management in treatment groups than control or placebo group. The findings from this study will provide data to improve outcomes for those who traditionally rely on the acupuncture for low back pain care and will entail wider debate about an appropriate acupuncture intervention in this population.
ClinicalTrial:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03802045
Citation
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