Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and incurable disease that causes degeneration of the motor neurons of the brain stem and the spinal cord. About half of ALS patients reported pain and joint contracture. Especially, the pain and contracture in shoulder joint are the main causes of decreasing quality of patient’s life. Electrical fire needling is a therapeutic measure of applying the stimulation of both acupuncture and heating. And it has effects of relieving pain and joint contracture. ALS patients with shoulder pain who visited the department of Acupuncture & Moxibustion in Wonkwang Gwangju Medical Center had taken electrical fire needling therapy for 8 times. We evaluated the relief of their shoulder pain and disability using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), and Passive Range of Motion (PROM). The pain evaluated by VAS was gradually decreased, and there was a significant difference between study group and control group. The mobility calculated by ROM was generally increased, but there was no significant difference between study group and control group generally. The above results show that electrical fire needling can be used as an effective treatment for reducing shoulder pain. Further studies on this subject are needed to yield more concrete evidence.
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