STROKE!!!. Annually, 15 million people worldwide suffer from stroke. Of these, 5 million die and another 5 million are left permanently disabled. Stroke is the biggest single cause of major disability. As such, stroke represents a heavy burden both on family and community.1 In China official statistics data show that stroke is the second most common cause of death among both urban and rural residents (117 per 100 000 per year in cities, and 112 per 100 000 in rural populations). The age-adjusted stroke prevalence in China varies from 259 per 100 000 to 719 per 100 000 for all ages.2 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has for many centuries been used, and it is still widely used today in countries of south and east Asia for the treatment of people with stroke. With the purpose of investigating the appropriate scientific evidence for TCM the Italian National Institute of Health and the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine have implemented a common project, the Joint Sino-Italian Laboratory (JoSIL) on TCM. This systematic review was conducted within the framework of JoSIL. Many systematic reviews of Chinese traditional treatments in stroke rehabilitation have been published, mainly on Chinese journals. Some systematic reviews were delivered by the Cochrane Library, mainly related to the acute phase of stroke. Most of these studies investigated the role of acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicines alone with contradictory conclusions.3–6 TCM includes acupuncture, massage, physical exercise, and Chinese herbal medicines, which are usually used in combination in clinical practice. However, whether or not the combinations of these treatments are truly effective for stroke is still unknown. The objective of our systematic review was to determine whether complex TCM treatments (cTCM) improves poststroke motor recovery. In particular, we defined cTCM as intervention that included at least acupuncture and Chinese.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 16:15:19 +0000
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