Why acupuncture in pain treatment?
Acupuncture is one of the branches of Chinese Traditional Medicine dating back almost 5 000 years. The expansion of China's trade and business relations with other Asian countries brought about the spreading of acupuncture in 7th Century. Nowadays, acupuncture is an interdisciplinary clinical field of Medicine dealing with treatment, diagnostics and prevention of mainly functional disorders, algic, allergic and addictive conditions of various etiology, localization and intensity. It draws from the millennia of experience of Oriental Medicine as well as contemporary knowledge of morphology, physiology and neurophysiology. The acupuncture method is based on influencing the body functions in a precise way by controlled irritation of particular active meridian points using special needles, heat (moxibustion), pressure (acupressure), underpressure (cupping), electricity (electroacupuncture), light (laser therapy), ultrasound (sonopuncture), static or pulsating electromagnetic field (magnetic therapy) and solutions (pharmacopuncture).The use of acupuncture as a method of pain relief in Modern Western Medicine is based on a wide range of clinical trials, and there is no doubt that it has significant effect in the treatment of acute and chronic pain classification. The introduction of gate-control theory and endogenous opioids facilitated the recognition of acupuncture in pain treatment.
Department of Acupuncture, Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Alena
A
Ondrejkovicova
Department of Acupuncture, Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Gabriel
G
Petrovics
Department of Acupuncture, Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Katarína
K
Svitkova
Department of Acupuncture, Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Bibiana
B
Bajtekova
Department of Acupuncture, Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Ondrej
O
Bangha
D015670:Acupuncture Therapy; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D059408:Pain Management / Q000379:methods*