Objective: To determine the effectiveness of acupuncture and Trager Psychophysical Integration (a form of manual therapy) in decreasing chronic shoulder pain in wheelchair users with spinal cord injury (SCI).
Design: A prospective clinical trial, with subjects randomized to acupuncture or Trager treatment condition. Subjects served as their own controls by including a 5-week pretreatment baseline period and a 5-week posttreatment follow-up period.
Setting: Rehabilitation hospital research department.
Participants: Eighteen subjects with chronic SCI and chronic shoulder pain who used manual wheelchairs as their primary means of mobility.
Intervention: Ten acupuncture or 10 Trager treatments over a 5-week period.
Main outcome measures: Changes in performance-corrected Wheelchair User's Shoulder Pain Index (PC-WUSPI) scores during baseline, treatment, and follow-up periods were assessed by using analysis of variance.
Results: The mean PC-WUSPI score +/- standard deviation of the 18 subjects at entry was 48.9 +/- 24.6 (range, 8.0-94). No significant change in mean PC-WUSPI scores occurred during the pretreatment baseline period. Mean PC-WUSPI scores decreased significantly during the treatment period in both the acupuncture (53.4%; 23.3 points) and Trager (53.8%; 21.7 points) treatment groups. The reduced PC-WUSPI scores were maintained in both groups throughout the 5-week posttreatment follow-up period.
Conclusion: Acupuncture and Trager are both effective treatments for reducing chronic shoulder pain associated with functional activities in persons with SCI.