Description | ||
---|---|---|
Acupuncture rationale | Style of acupuncture | Traditional Chinese medicine |
Rationale for treatment | Acupuncture has been historically used to treat facial palsy. Additionally, it is known to be a safe treatment used in a wide range of symptoms caused by Bell’s palsy | |
Extent to which treatment varied | The subjects of the intervention group all receive the same acupuncture or electroacupuncture treatment | |
Details of needling | Number of needle insertions per subject per session | 10 |
Names of the insertion points (uni- or bilateral) | GB14, TE23, Qianzheng, LI20, SI18, ST4 (unilateral, affected side), LI4, LR3 (bilateral) | |
Depth of insertion | 10–30 mm (exact depth shown in Table 2) | |
Response sought | Deqi | |
Needle stimulation | Some in electric stimulation, others in manual stimulation (exact details are in the text) | |
Needle retention time | 20 minutes | |
Needle type | 0.30 mm (diameter) × 25 mm (length) disposal needle (Huatuo Acupuncture, Suzhou, China) | |
Treatment regimen | Number of treatment sessions | 12 |
Frequency and duration of treatment sessions | 3 sessions/wk for 4 wk | |
Other components of treatment | Details of other interventions administered to the acupuncture group | No other interventions |
Setting and context of treatment | All subjects are informed that they will receive acupuncture or electroacupuncture treatment, which can potentially reduce Bell’s palsy symptoms; however, the non-acupuncture control group would have to complete the evaluations during the first week before receiving the same treatment as the acupuncture group. | |
Practitioner background | Description of participating acupuncturists | Specialists in traditional Chinese medicine with at least 3 years of practice in acupuncture |
Control or comparator interventions | Rationale for the control or comparator in the context of the research question | Non-acupuncture control is used as a control because sham acupuncture cannot be a substituted for a physiologically inert placebo, and Western medicine is recommended in the guideline. |
Precise description of the control or comparator | The Western medicine control group forms a positive control and completes the evaluations during the first week after randomization. |