PRINCIPLES OF TREATMENT

What disorders are suitable for treatment?

Most acupuncture treatment is concerned with musculoskeletal disorders. Acupuncture can also be used to treat a number of disorders that are not – or not obviously – related to the musculoskeletal system.

It is possible to grade disorders according to the likelihood that they will respond to acupuncture. >UL>

  • Group A: Those that generally do well (50 to 70 per cent).
  • Group B: Those that do moderately well (10 to 50 per cent).
  • Group C: Those that seldom or never respond (less than 10 per cent).

Musculoskeletal disorders are generally Group A. Being a strong reactor moves a patient up by at least one category.

Note that in many cases it is either not possible to assign a formal diagnostic label to a patient’s symptoms or else the label applied (e.g. ‘osteoarthritis’) is fairly unhelpful. This does not mean that reaching a pathological diagnosis is irrelevant, but rather that acupuncture can be used in cases where no formal diagnosis has been found in spite of ample investigations.

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