For people with acute stroke, does acupuncture help to improve outcomes?

Abstract

For people with acute stroke, acupuncture compared with control has uncertain effects on death or institutional care, on changes in global neurological deficit score, and on motor function at end of follow‐up or treatment period. Low‐certainty evidence suggests that acupuncture may reduce death or dependency at three months or later (173 vs 258 per 1000 people; all results on average) but, given the low event rates, may lead to little or no difference in mortality at final follow‐up. Acupuncture may be associated with fewer adverse events than control interventions (94 vs 152 per 1000 people); however, the confidence intervals cannot rule out detrimental effects of acupuncture.