British journal of sports medicine
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Acupuncture applied as a sensory discrimination training tool decreases movement-related pain in patients with chronic low back pain more than acupuncture alone: a randomised cross-over experiment.
High-quality clinical evidence suggests that although acupuncture appears superior to usual care in the management of chronic low back pain, there is little meaningful difference between true and sham acupuncture. This suggests that the benefits of acupuncture are mediated by the placebo response. An alternative explanation is that sham acupuncture is an active treatment and shares a mechanism of action with traditionally applied acupuncture. One plausible candidate for this mechanism is improvement in self-perception mediated through the sensory discrimination-like qualities of acupuncture. We aimed to compare the effects of acupuncture with a sensory discrimination training component to acupuncture without. ⋯ Our findings are consistent with the idea that acupuncture may offer specific benefit that is not dependent on precisely where the needles are inserted so much as that the patient attends to where they are inserted. If so, the location of the needles might be better focused on the painful area and the need for penetration of the skin may be mitigated.
-
Physicians are increasingly being called upon to promote physical activity (PA) among patients. However, a paucity of exercise medicine teaching in the UK undergraduate medical curricula prevents students from acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills to do so. To address this issue, King's College London School of Medicine introduced an exercise medicine strand of teaching. This study evaluated the acceptability of exercise promotion behaviour change lectures and explored the knowledge and attitudes of the students who received it. ⋯ Behaviour change teaching successfully improved students' knowledge of and confidence regarding PA promotion. These improvements are a step forward and may increase the rates and success of physician PA counselling in the future.