Efficacy of Acupuncture in Exercise Tolerance in Patients With COPD

Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive

Treatments: Procedure: acupuncture

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03767140

acupuncture

Details and patient eligibility

About

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is nowadays the 4th cause of death in the world and it´s expected to become the 3rd cause of death in 2020 and the majority cause of morbidity. Besides that, in Portugal COPD patients become more dependents each day.

Acupuncture as a reflex therapy it´s carried out through a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnose that will allowed to identify the acupoints.

The investigators are interested in to assess acupuncture efficacy on physical exercise tolerance in COPD patients.An experimental, controlled, randomized, double blind study was done. Patients were recruited according TCM diagnose to optimize potential therapeutic effects.

Enrollment: 29 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 90 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• COPD GOLD III,IV;
• able to walk;
• Informed consent signed;
• stable medication during last 3 days
• exacerbation during 3 months;
• Chinese diagnose opening principle;
• blood pressure "90"180 mmhg/ "100mmhg; respiratory rate "10"30 cpm

Exclusion criteria

• smoker;
• metastasis;
• hepatic,
• renal or cardiovascular disease;
• pulmonary hypertension;
• COPD symptoms exacerbation during the therapy;
• previous acupuncture treatments;
• unstable vital signs;
• pulmonary rehabilitation in the last 6 months;
• needle phobia.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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29 participants in 2 patient groups

Verum acupucnture

Experimental group

Description:

Real acupuncture treatment

Treatment:

Procedure: acupuncture

sham acupuncture

Sham Comparator group

Description:

False acupuncture treatment using not acupuncture points

Treatment:

Procedure: acupuncture