Discussions on real-world acupuncture treatments for chronic low-back pain in older adults.

Abstract

Chronic low-back pain (CLBP) is one of the most common pain conditions. Current clinical guidelines for low-back pain recommend acupuncture for CLBP. However, there are very few high-quality acupuncture studies on CLBP in older adults. Clinical acupuncture experts in the American Traditional Chinese Medicine Association (ATCMA) were interested in the recent grant on CLBP research announced by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The ATCMA experts held an online discussion on the subject of real-world acupuncture treatments for CLBP in older adults. Seven participants, each with more than 20 years of acupuncture practice, discussed their own unique clinical experience while another participant talked about the potential mechanism of acupuncture in pain management. As a result of the discussion, a picture of a similar treatment strategy emerged across the participants for CLBP in older adults. This discussion shows that acupuncture may have complicated mechanisms in pain management, yet it is effective for the treatment of chronic pain involving maladaptive neuroplasticity; therefore, it should be effective for CLBP in older adults.