Jeong, Min-Su

Spiral taping shows great effectiveness in relieving musculoskeletal pains. The purpose of this research is to compare effectiveness of herbal acupuncture of Carthami semen(Honghwa) vs its cotreatment with spiral taping for the treatment of acute low back pain. The target patients were those who satisfied with all of the following conditions. 1. Those who suffered from acute low back pain but without past history of the pain in the last six weeks. 2. The pain wasn't radiated to the lower limbs and were without any neurotic symptoms. A computerized randomization was used to set the patients in two groups. The control group was consisted of 41 patients and treated with herbal acupuncture. The experimental group was consisted of 49 patients and treated with spiral taping as well as herbal acupuncture. The treatment was given two times a week and the nurses measured the ROM and VAS evaluation before every treatment. The patients wrote ODI by themselves before the first treatment and after the 3rd treatment. After three months, an interview of the patients' condition through a follow up survey was done. In terms of acute low back pain in both the control group and experimental group, significant treatment effects were found by assessing VAS, ROM and ODI. By comparing the control group and the experimental group, there was more significant improvement in the experimental group than the control group of VAS and ROM, but no significant effect was found between the groups of ODI. This study shows that the herbal acupuncture of Carthami Semen plays a significant role in relieving acute low back pain. It also shows that spiral taping of the experimental group was more highly effective. As a result, spiral taping can be used with acupunture of Carthami Semen for a highly effective treatment for acute low back pain.

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