Possible Perspectives of P6 Acupressure

which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We read with great interest the article by Etri M et al. about the effects of P6 acupressure on pain and vital signs of patients following small abdominal surgeries (1). Post-operative pain is often experienced by surgical patients, with practical consequences on clinical outcomes, due to the possible complications related to the use of analgesic drugs (such as opioids or non-steroidal anti-inflammato-ry drugs). Moreover, the experience of discomfort complained by the patients may affect their subjective judgment about surgical procedures. For these reasons, there is a large amount of studies among the existing literature about the effects of alternative medicine-especially the acupressure-in the management of post-operative pain and other common symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, insomnia, muscular pain and dyspnea. However, there are still not univocal evidences supporting the routinely use of such procedures. Possible explanations about this lack of evidences may be the small amount of random-ized controlled trials which have reached an adequate sample size as well as the differences in acupressure dose administration between the studies (2). Etri et al. study (1) investigated the effects of P6 acu-pressure on vital signs in post-operative patients and a possible relationship between acupressure and a more objective measure of its efficacy was suggested. We think that the purpose of verifying the effects of an alternative medicine in less subjective way than individual symptoms is a valid and interesting choice. The method adopted for the study consisted in randomizing the two groups of patients with respect to some variables, such as age, duration of anesthesia and length of surgical incision. Moreover the double-blind effect (patients did not know which group they were belonging to) added scientific value to the study. Analysis of vital signs is crucial in the post-operative period; nevertheless any evidence has been found at this moment about a possible relationship between P6 acu-pressure and post-operative changes of systolic and dia-stolic blood pressure, respiration and pulse rate, both in the general literature and in the aforementioned study (1). This may suggest that P6 acupressure has no role in blood pressure, pulse rate and respiratory activity alteration in post-operative phases. Eventually, different way of investigation or different study design need to be encouraged in order to explain P6 related vital signs changes. With respect to the results of the study about post-operative pain, …