Prehospital analgesia with acupressure at the Baihui and Hegu points in patients with radial fractures: a prospective, randomized, double-blind trial

Lang, Thomas; Hager, Helmut; Funovits, Verena; Barker, Renate; Steinlechner, Barbara; Hoerauf, Klaus; Kober, Alexander

doi:10.1016/j.ajem.2007.01.016

« Previous Next »American Journal of Emergency Medicine
Volume 25, Issue 8 , Pages 887-893, October 2007

Prehospital analgesia with acupressure at the Baihui and Hegu points in patients with radial fractures: a prospective, randomized, double-blind trial

Thomas Lang, MD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +43 1 40400 4109; fax: +43 1 40400 4110.
Helmut Hager, MD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Verena Funovits, MD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Renate Barker, MD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
- Austrian Task Force for Pain Care and Research “Contra Dolorem”, Vienna A-1210, Austria
Barbara Steinlechner, MD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Klaus Hoerauf, MD, PhD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Alexander Kober, MD, PhD
- Department of Anesthesiology and General Intensive Care, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
- Austrian Task Force for Pain Care and Research “Contra Dolorem”, Vienna A-1210, Austria

Received 1 October 2006; received in revised form 10 January 2007; accepted 11 January 2007.

Abstract

Background

Pain during transportation is a common phenomenon in emergency medicine. As acupressure has been deemed effective for pain management by the National Institutes of Health, we conducted a study to evaluate its effectiveness in prehospital patients with isolated distal radial fracture.

Methods

This was a prospective, randomized, double-blind study. Thirty-two patients were enrolled. Acupressure was performed either at “true” points or at “sham” points. Vital signs and pain and anxiety scores were recorded before and after the acupressure treatment. Normally distributed values were compared using the Student t test.

Results

Pretreatment scores for pain and anxiety were similar in the 2 groups (47.6 ± 8.9 vs 51.2 ± 8.7 visual analog scale [VAS] score for pain, 52.4 ± 6.0 vs 47.5 ± 9.3 VAS score for anxiety). At the hospital, patients in the true-points group had significantly lower pain (36.6 ± 11.0 vs 56.0 ± 13.3 VAS score, P < .001) and anxiety scores (34.9 ± 22.2 vs 53.4 ± 19.7 VAS score, P = .022).