Highlights
- Acupuncture could be new possible treatment for tackling dental anxiety.
- An estimated 30 percentage of people worldwide are suffering from dental anxiety which is nothing but anxiety before going to the dentist.
- After acupuncture was used, dental anxiety dropped by eight points.
In review with 800 patients in 6 trials, researchers from the University Of York measured anxiety levels of dental patients using point scale. From this they found that after acupuncture, the dental anxiety levels dropped by eight points, leading them to believe acupuncture could be a possible new treatment option for dental anxiety.
Only limited researchers have been done so far to see acupuncture’s effect on anxiety. Out of 120 trials across countries, only six trails were eligible for review in this study, with two showing high-quality methods.
"There is increasing scientific interest in the effectiveness of acupuncture either as a standalone treatment or as an accompanying treatment to more traditional medications,” said Hugh Mac Pherson, Professor of Acupuncture at the University of York.
"We have recently shown, for example, that acupuncture treatment can boost the effectiveness of standard medical care in chronic pain and depression” he added.
To increase the robustness of the findings, large-scale controlled trails needs to carried out. No conclusions were drawn in between patients that received acupuncture as an intervention and those that received placebo treatments.
Reference
- Fraser Kirkwood Allan, EmilyPeckham, JianpingLiu, Kristina Charlotte Dietz,Tingting Zhang, Aline Arakaki, Hugh MacPhersona. Acupuncture for anxiety in dental patients: Systematic review and meta-analysis, European Journal of Integrative Medicinel (2018).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eujim.2018.03.008
Source-Medindia