Effects of Acupuncture in Different Stages on Pelvic Floor Muscles and Urinary Function in Patients with Spinal Cord Injury
CHENG Rui-dong
ZHU Gen-ying
YE Xiang-ming
LI Jue-bao
ZHOU Liang
WEN Wan-shun
TIAN Liang
Abstract：Objective To investigate the therapeutic effects of acupuncture on pelvic floor muscles and urinary function in patients with spinal cord injury. Methods From March, 2012 to March, 2015, 23 patients with spinal cord injury were divided into control group (n=8), early intervention group (n=8) and later intervention group (n=7). The control group received routine rehabilitation, the intervention groups received acupuncture at Baliao (BL-31, BL-32, BL-33 BL-34), Yanglingquan (GB-34), Sanyinjiao (SP-6) and Taichong (LR-3) acupoints in addition. The early intervention group was acupunctured one week before removal of catheter, and the later intervention group adopted inter-mittent catheterization after removal of catheter, and then received acupuncture. The pelvic floor muscles strength, the urine function and quality of life were recorded before and six weeks after intervention. Results There was no significant difference in all the indices before in-tervention (P>0.05). After intervention, the pelvic floor muscles strength improved in the intervention groups compared with the control group (P<0.05). There was significant difference in the mean frequency of urinary voiding, bladder capacity, time of establishing reflect uri-nation and residual volume of urine after intervention among all the groups (P<0.05), except the mean frequency of urinary voiding and blad-der capacity between the control group and the later intervention group (P>0.05). The quality of life improved in all the groups after inter-vention (F>0.864, P<0.05), however, no significant difference was found among three groups (F=1.558, P<0.05). Conclusion Acupuncture, especially early acupuncture, could improve the pelvic floor muscle strength and bladder function in spinal cord injury patients.
Keywords：spinal cord injuryacupuncturepelvic floor musclesbladder functionquality of life
Publication Date：2016-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 1438-1441 )