Pilot of Acupuncture to Improve Quality of Life in Veterans With TBI and PTSD

US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Post-traumatic Stress Disorders

Treatments: Other: Acupuncture treatment

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01060553

PPO 09-258

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to examine if acupuncture improves Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms among veterans who participated in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. This study will also examine the degree of veteran acceptance for acupuncture.

Full description

Project Background: Acupuncture can be effective for many of the specific co-morbidities that make up war-related Trauma Spectrum Disorder in both TBI and PTSD patients, including pain, stress and anxiety, insomnia, somatic and post-operative pain. Recent studies find very large effect sizes (Cohen's D .85 to 1.4). Thus, there is good reason to believe that acupuncture will induce recovery across a number of trauma spectrum dysfunctions in patients with TBI and PTSD, at low cost and with little risk.

Project Objectives: The overall objective of this application is to determine the efficacy of adjunctive acupuncture for improving quality of life and function and alleviating co-morbidities associated with TBI and PTSD in service members injured in the current wars. The primary hypothesis of this study is: OIF/OEF veterans who screen positive for TBI or PTSD and are treated with a 12 week standard individualized acupuncture method will experience improved HRQL (as measured by the Veteran's SF-36) at 6, 12 and 24 week follow-up, compared to veterans randomly assigned to standard care alone.

Project Methods: This is a pilot study on veterans who screen positive for TBI or PTSD in the VA healthcare record, which is being submitted to obtain additional pilot data, confirmation of recruitment strategies, and information on non-participants . Frequency distribution and summary statistics for demographics and baseline variables will be presented by intervention group and for all subjects combined. Key demographic variables to be summarized are: age, gender, time to deployment, number of deployments, and diagnosis. Key baseline variables are: PTSD CAPS score, VSF-36, and ANAM score.

Enrollment: 34 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 69 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis or positive screen test for PTSD.
• Combat veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom conflicts.

Exclusion criteria

• Unable to travel to East Orange VA for 12 consecutive weeks, biweekly for treatment.
• Does not speak English.
• Acupuncture or CBT treatment within the previous six months.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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34 participants in 2 patient groups

Arm 1

Experimental group

Description:

The treatment program consisted of 24 semi-individualized acupuncture treatments over 12 weeks. It combines front and back treatments to avoid point fatigue (tolerance due to frequent use). The front treat-ment uses 11 needles, bilateral at acupuncture points LR3, PC6, HT7, ST36, SP6, and one at Yintang; the back treatment uses 14 needles, bilateral at points GB20, and BL14, 15, 18, 20, 21, and 23. There are 15 other points from which the flexibly prescribed points could be chosen

Treatment:

Other: Acupuncture treatment

wait list control

No Intervention group

Description:

subjects were put on a wait list control. due to small numbers completing in both groups, the data from the wait list who completed acupuncture are combined with the experimental treatment group for analysis.