Clinical Effect of Warming Acupuncture-Moxibustion Combined with Traditional Chinese Medicines in Syndrome Differentiation Based Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis of Vertebral Artery Type: A Report of 30 Cases

Objective To investigate the clinical effect of warming acupuncture-moxibustion on cervical spondylosis of vertebral artery type(CSA).Methods A prospective randomized controlled trial was conducted.In the trial,60 CSA patients were randomly divided into treatment group(n=30) and control group(n=30).The treatment group received syndrome differentiation based treatment,or choosing an appropriate therapy based on the specific syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine,using warming acupuncture-moxibustion combined with traditional Chinese medicines.The control group received syndrome differentiation based treatment using conventional acupuncture combined with traditional Chinese medicines.The clinical effects,traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) syndrome scores,and cervical vertigo symptoms and functional assessment scores were observed in both groups after two courses of treatment.Results The clinical effect was significantly better in the treatment group than in the control group(P0.05),and so was the cure rate(P0.05).After treatment,the TCM syndrome scores increased significantly in both groups(P0.01),and the TCM syndrome scores in the treatment group were significantly higher than those in the control group(P0.01);the vertical vertigo symptoms and functional assessment scores increased significantly in both groups(P0.05 or P0.01),and,compared with the control group,the treatment group showed significantly higher cervical vertigo symptoms and functional assessment scores and increase in the scores(P0.01).In addition,the treatment group showed higher scores on vertigo,neck rotation test,and daily life and work than the control group after treatment(P0.05 or P0.01).Conclusion Warming acupuncture-moxibustion has good clinical effect on CSA and shows significantly better performance than conventional acupuncture in improving TCM syndrome and ability of daily life and work.