title: Acupuncture for treating whiplash associated disorder: a systematic review of randomised clinical trials.
abstract: The aim of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture for the treatment of whiplash associated disorder (WAD). Twenty databases were searched from their inceptions to Oct. 2013. Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of acupuncture (AT), electroacupuncture (EA), or dry needling (DN) for the treatment of WAD were considered eligible. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane tool. Six RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Most of the included RCTs have serious methodological flaws. Four of the RCTs showed effectiveness of AT, AT in addition to usual care (UC), AT in addition to herbal medicine (HM) or EA was more effective than relaxation, sham EA, sham EA in addition to HM or UC for conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and alleviating pain. In one RCT, DN in addition to physiotherapy (PT) had no effect compared to sham-DN in addition to PT for the reduction of pain. None of the RCTs showed that AT/EA/DN was more effective than various types of control groups in reducing disability/function. One RCT did not report between-group comparisons of any outcome measures. The evidence for the effectiveness of AT/EA/DN for the treatment of WAD is limited. Therefore, more research in this area is warranted.
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea ; Jaseng Oriental Hospital, Bundang 463-824, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Woong
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea ; The Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 2AY, UK.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Posadzki
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Young
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Oriental Medicine, International St. Mary's Hospital, Incheon 404-834, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tae-Yong
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, International St. Mary's Hospital, Incheon 404-834, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hye-Jung
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Myeong Soo
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, University of Exeter, Exeter EX2 4SG, UK.
authors.forename: Edzard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ernst