Hospital care experiences of female relatives caring for patients with post-stroke dysphagia during the COVID-19: a qualitative study in China.

Background: Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, Chinese hospitals are forced to impose stringent regulations, which unavoidably affect patients with stroke who need continued rehabilitation and long-term disease treatment. However, there is a lack of qualitative studies in the literature on female relative caregivers of hospitalised patients who had a stroke with dysphagia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to explore the experiences of female Chinese caregivers living in the hospital with patients with post-stroke dysphagia during the pandemic.

Efficacy and safety of acupuncture combined with auricular acupressure for smoking cessation: A study protocol of a multicentre, randomized, controlled clinical trial.

Background: Nicotine dependence is an addictive behavioral disease facilitated by habitually smoking cigarettes. In many countries, acupuncture and auricular acupressure have attracted growing attention as complementary or alternative treatments for smoking cessation; however, there is a lack of rigorous randomized, controlled studies evaluating the combination of these two interventions specifically for smoking cessation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of using acupuncture combined with auricular acupressure (A&AA) to increase the rates of smoking cessation and ultimately reduce the rates of relapse.

Efficacy of Manipulative Acupuncture Therapy Monitored by LSCI Technology in Patients with Severe Bell's Palsy: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

To determine if the effect of manipulative acupuncture monitored by laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) can improve facial blood perfusion in patients with severe Bell's palsy. This randomized, single-blind, controlled trial included 120 newly diagnosed patients (within 14 days) with severe Bell's palsy (House-Brackmann grading system (HBGS) ≥ grade IV). The patients were randomized (1 : 1) to receive either acupoints acupuncture combined with manipulations of twirling, lifting, and thrusting treatments (manipulative acupuncture) or acupoints acupuncture therapy alone (simple acupuncture).

Combinatorial effects of conception and governor vessel electroacupuncture and human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells on pathomorphologic lesion and cellular apoptosis in rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion.

Objective: To investigate the combinatorial effects of conception and governor vessel electroacupuncture (EA) and human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HUCB-MSCs) on pathomorphologic lesion and cellular apoptosis in rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion.

Methods: With the HUCB-MSCs isolated, cultured and identified and the models of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion established, the HUCB-MSCs of passage three were intracranially transplanted and the EA at conception and governor vessels was applied. The pathomorphologic lesion by hematoxylin-eosin staining and the cellular apoptosis by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated nick-end labeling method around the ischemic focus were observed.

Research advances in treatment of cerebral ischemic injury by acupuncture of conception and governor vessels to promote nerve regeneration.

Cerebral ischemia is one of the most common diseases treated by acupuncture therapeutics. Recent studies indicated that acupuncture treatment by needling the conception and governor vessels had positive effects in promoting neural regeneration in patients after cerebral ischemia injury. Acupuncture intervention could continuously promote the proliferation and differentiation of the neural stem cells in the brain, obviously up-regulate expression of growth factors, accelerate angiogenesis and inhibit apoptosis.