[Observation on Shao's five-needle therapy as adjuvant treatment for stroke-associated pneumonia].

OBJECTIVE To compare the therapeutic effect between Shao 's five-needle therapy combined with conventional western medical treatment and the simple conventional western medical treatment on stroke-associated pneumonia. METHODS A total of 80 patients were randomized into an observation group and a control group, 40 cases in each group. Conventional western medication treatment i.e. anti-infection combined with rehabilitation swallowing training were adopted in the control group. On the basis of the treatment in the control group, Shao 's five-needle therapy was applied at Feishu (BL 13), Dazhui (GV 14), Fengmen (BL 12), etc. in the observation group, once a day. The treatment was given for 10 days in the both groups. The levels of inflammatory indexes [white blood cell (WBC), C-reactive protein (CRP), percentage of neutrophil (N%)] before and after treatment, the disappearance time of main clinical symptoms and signs, the scores of National Institutes of Health Stroke scale (NIHSS) and the ability of daily living (ADL) were observed, and the clinical therapeutic effect was evaluated in the both groups. RESULTS Compared before treatment, the levels of WBC, CRP, N% and the NIHSS scores after treatment were decreased (P<0.05), the ADL scores were increased in the both groups (P<0.05), and the improvement of above indexes in the observation group was superior to the control group (P<0.05). The recovery time of temperature and rale, the duration of cough in the observation group were shorter than those in the control group (P<0.05). The effective rate was 97.5% (39/40) in the observation group, which was superior to 85.0% (34/40) in the control group (P<0.05). CONCLUSION Shao 's five-needle therapy combined with conventional western medical treatment can effectively improve the clinical symptoms in patients with stroke-associated pneumonia, down-regulate the inflammatory indexes and improve the quality of life, the therapeutic effect is superior to the simple conventional western medical treatment.