Acupuncture for spastic hemiplegia after ischemic stroke: a systematic review

Objective To systematically assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for spastic hemiplegia after ischemic stroke. Methods Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture treatment for spastic hemiplegia after ischemic stroke meeting the inclusion criteria in Cochrane Library, Medline, Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), SinoMed, Chongqing VIP Database (VIP), and Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform (Wanfang) published from each database’s inception to February 2023 were retrieved by computer. Two reviewers independently extracted data and evaluated the risk of bias using Cochrane’s risk of bias tool. Review Manager 5.4 was used for data analysis. Continuous data were evaluated using mean difference (MD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI), and dichotomous data were analyzed using risk ratio (RR). Results A total of 24 trials, including 1 970 participants, were included in the study. The meta-analysis of 7 trials showed that compared to the rehabilitation therapy, acupuncture therapy was more effective in improving the simplified Fugl-Meyer assessment score after 1-month treatments [MD=10.52, 95% CI (7.81, 13.23), P