Folk moxibustion as an effective therapy for cerebral palsy: a new direction for clinical research

Abstract

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common neurological disorder that cause motor and language disabilities in children. CP is caused by a non-progressive brain injury and/or malformation during brain development. Population-based studies report prevalence of CP ranging from 1.5 to more than 4 per 1,000 live births or children of a defined age range worldwide. In the US, 1 in 323 children has been identified with CP. A cross-sectional CP study of 388,192 children aged <7 years showed a prevalence of 1.6 per 1000 children or 2.8 per 1000 birthweight-adjusted children in Jiangsu province, China in 1997 or estimated 310000 CP cases nationwide. As the survival of low birthweight infants improves, the prevalence of CP is much higher now. So far there is no proven effective therapeutics for CP. Here we report the clinical evidence of the safety and effectiveness of a folk moxibustion therapy for children with severe symptoms of cerebral palsy. Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy using moxa made from dried mugwort (Artemisia argyi). Suppliers usually dry the mugwort and grind it up to a fluff before processing it further into a cigar-shaped stick; Moxibustion practitioners burn the fluff or stick indirectly, with acupuncture needles, or burn it onto the patient's skin. In this case, the practitioner successfully treated many children with multiple severe symptoms of CP who were diagnosed as impossible to be improved using current therapies by the experts from the nation’s top hospitals. In the presentation, we will present the clinical evidence of the moxibustion and review the current TCM theory underling the moxibustion therapy that improved the motor and language function of the children with CP. Further, we propose that more scientific research such as fMRI should be conducted to provide the scientific evidence and illustrate the mechanism underlying moxibustion therapy.