A critical appraisal of “Additional effects of acupuncture on early comprehensive rehabilitation in patients with mild to moderate acute ischemic stroke: a multicenter randomized controlled trial ”

Abstract

The following paper is a critical appraisal of the research article “Additional effects of acupuncture on early comprehensive rehabilitation in patients with mild to moderate acute ischemic stroke: a multicenter randomized controlled trial ”. This appraisal fulfills the requirement for a Doctor of Physical Therapy Evidence Based Practice course, as well as answers a clinical question regarding the effects of acupuncture on motor function in post stroke patients. This critical appraisal examines the strengths and weaknesses of the introduction, methods, results, and discussion of the research article. Further, discussion of the clinical relevance, application, and limitations of the research conducted were analyzed and recorded in this paper. The results from this study showed that acupuncture is safe and has additional effects in improving neurological deficits, swallowing disorders, cognitive impairment, and lower extremity motor function, but has no significant improvements for upper extremity motor function. Analyzing results of current research is important for me as a student physical therapist to consider whether I would choose to implement this in future stroke patients