Factors influencing the

Effectiveness of acupuncture
treatment
Mirjam Golub, dr. med.
UVOD
 Many factors involved in the result of treatment

 A big choice of styles and techniques of acupuncture

 Lack of standardization
Sensitivity of bodily surface
 An important factor

 Differences can show

 sistemically
 locally
 Different patient respond differently:
 Ženske ter osebe s šibko telesno zgradbo šibke
 Older people usually have a hyposensitivity to needling
 Children a lot of the time show hypersensitivity of needles
 With patients of middle age either hipo- or hiper-
sensitivity to pain can occur
 Yin side more sensitive than yang

 Needle-resistance (moxibustion – resistance)

An appropriate bodily position during
treatment
 Bodily position must be comfortable for the patient
 The patient must be still for the time of the
treatment (20 – 40 min)
 We must adjust treatment to the curves of the body:
 Cervical
 Lumbar
 Slight curve of the elbows
 Positions:
 Lying position (the most comfortable and relaxing)
 Side hip position
 Sitting position
 Valgus position (when treating diseases on the
medial side of the arm)
Psychological factors
 Vključevanje psiholoških faktorjev neizogibno

 30 % cases of chronical pain correlated to

psychological factors
 Inthe western world the patient is not as educated
about treatment, as in the Eastern

 The doctor must describe the principles of

acupuncture

 InTCM the doctor has to watch out for his attitude

towards the patient
The mental state of the patient
 Patient’s mental state has a huge impact on the
his/her treatment and it’s results:
 The rutine technique not suitable for patients
suffering from neurose

 Ways of comforting the patient:

 Explaining the procedure of treatment
 The environment has to be calm and relaxing
Acupuncturist’s finger strength
 The effect of treatment is connected to the
acupuncturist’s finger strength
 Master Jiao – prior influence of acupressure on
acupuncture
 Finger strength can be gained in multiple ways:
 Through practice
 Needling multi-layered cushions or plastic models
(for students)
 Enhancing hand strength
Technique of the painless needle
insertion

 The pain that occurs with the skin puncturing is a

common cause of needle pain

 Needles, even the small ones, can evoke a specific level

of pain

 Special technique
Therapeutic enviroment

 Un uspecific type of intervening information

 If the environment is not properly organized, the
treatment itself can show less results
 Temperature is a big factor in the reaction of the patient
 If there is not airconditioning, the patient can faint from
the pain
 A proper lighting and absence of noise are two factor
which contribute greatly to the over-all result
 The influence of factors can be explained in multiple
ways:
 Competition between distracting signals or acupuncture
signals
 A change in patient’s pain threshold
The order of stimulations

 Rarely does the treatment include a stimulation of just a

single point

 Normally we use multiple acupuncture points during the

treatment
The area of stimulation

 An acupuncture point is an area and not just a point the

mathematical sence of the word

 With ordinary perpendicular needling we cannot exceed

the stimulated area

 When stimulating acupuncture points, we have to thinkof

it as an area, and not just a single point
THE SIZE OF NEEDLES
 Multiple thicknesses of needles (thin, medium, thick…)

 Diameter correlated with stimulation strength

 A needle should not be too thin

ANGLE, DEPTH AND DIRECTION OF
NEEDLING
 Every point is unique

 The angle of insertion represents the angle between the needle and the
skin

 The direction of needle manipulation can be adjusted to the patient’s

specific needs
 CONCLUSION

Medicine is art

Both eastern and western medicine try to solve the unsovable

Merely puncturing the skin is not enough