| Summary: | 碩士 === 中原大學 === 生物醫學工程研究所 === 100 === Therapeutic effects of acupuncture treatment are normally assessed by using questionnaires. However, the objectivity of results is often questionable because many surveys only consider subjective responses in patients. To avoid drawing biased survey conclusions, we proposed a new strategy in which, apart from the subjective questionnaires, objective clinical measurements are involved to assess the therapeutic effects. The strategy facilitates personalized medical practices, and it also encourages patients to participate in the decision-making process. The participants in this study are patients with knee osteoarthritis. We used acupuncture theory from Chinese medicine, performing acupuncture on three acupuncture points (Yanglingquan, Dubi, and Weizhong) to treat knee osteoarthritis. The acupuncture depth is 0.5 in. and the needle retention time is 15 min. We measured the quadriceps and the biceps femoris at loads of 3 kg and 5 kg, performing a 3-min surface electromyography (sEMG) for knee kicking extensor movement. We employ recurrence quantification analysis and root mean square values to investigate the changes in sEMG before and after acupuncture is conducted. We also compared knee motion angles and pain scales before and after therapy to investigate the influence of the therapy. A total of 11 valid clinical participants were enrolled. All had knee osteoarthritis at Stage 2 or later. Statistical analysis indicates that only the left knee VAS is significantly different (p < .05) among the assessment parameters before and after treatment. The other assessment parameters did not differ significantly (p > .05). This indicates that the acupuncture used in this study was unable to improve muscular activity and range of motion.
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