BACKGROUND Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is usually treated with opiate derivatives and supported with nonpharmacological treatment. METHODS This prospective, randomized, controlled, blinded, single-center study was carried out between March 2009 and November 2014. Newborn infants diagnosed with NAS after maternal opioid substitution therapy were eligible for inclusion. Infants were rand...

Drs White and Cummings state that we negatively reported findings of our ‘positive study’—namely, our trial evaluating acupuncture for chronic knee osteoarthritis (OA). Our study was not a ‘positive study’ as they suggest. Rather, our study showed no benefit of needle or laser acupuncture compared with sham laser acupuncture on either of our two primary outcomes (pain and function), and small c...

Twenty-one patients with Sjögren's syndrome were given four different kinds of acupuncture stimulation, at acupuncture points previously used to treat xerostomia. The local blood flux in the skin overlying the parotid gland was measured with laser Doppler flowmetry before, during and after the acupuncture stimulation. The results showed that the local blood flux increased significantly during a...

Glazov and colleagues are to be commended for their efforts in completing a high quality, primary care-based trial of laser acupuncture in the treatment of chronic low back pain (CLBP). This is a timely and important study (see page 94): over the last several decades, back pain (and CLBP in particular), has become recognised as a prevalent, costly and largely intractable condition; laser acupun...

BACKGROUND Chronic knee pain is a common and disabling condition in people over 50 years of age, with knee joint osteoarthritis being a major cause. Acupuncture is a popular form of complementary and alternative medicine for treating pain and dysfunction associated with musculoskeletal conditions. This pragmatic Zelen-design randomised controlled trial is investigating the efficacy and cost-eff...

There are only few scientific publications dealing with the basic investigation of the effects of only one or two acupoints or comparing one single point with another single point, using different stimulation methods in the same persons. The aim of this needle-controlled, randomized crossover study was to investigate the neurovegetative parameters heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV...

Clinical and basic research on high-tech acupuncture and integrative medicine has been performed all over the world during the last decades, using a broad spectrum of innovative biomedical engineering methods. Acupuncture has been used for medical treatment for thousands of years. Using electroacupuncture, needle or laser needle stimulation and modern biomedical techniques, it was possible for ...

This short review article gives a brief description of the TCM Research Center Graz, especially the part of high-tech acupuncture research. A new technology for non-invasive acupuncture stimulation using violet laser (405 nm, 110 mW, 500 μm) is described. With this kind of laser it is possible to induce a so-called Deqi sensation which is very important in Chinese acupuncture. The second part o...

This is the first study to investigate intravenous (i.v.) laser blood irradiation, interstitial (i.st.) laser acupuncture, and electroacupuncture (EA) in combination with heart rate variability (HRV) and electrocorticogram. We investigated 10 male anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats under the three conditions mentioned previously in Beijing, China, and data analysis was performed in Graz, Europe. ...

BACKGROUND Due to controversially discussed results in scientific literature concerning changes of electrical skin impedance before and during acupuncture a new measurement system has been developed. METHODS The prototype measures and analyzes the electrical skin impedance computer-based and simultaneously in 48 channels within a 2.5×3.5 cm matrix. Preliminary measurements in one person were ...