播客 1008：针灸治疗老年人腰痛

本节目由CarePoint和HCA HealthONE联合赞助，为您带来急诊医疗小贴士。

This is the emergency medical minute sponsored by CarePoint and HCA HealthONE.

好的，大家早上好。

All right, well good morning everybody.

我们在急诊科经常遇到背痛患者，但说实话，这类病例往往没那么有趣，也很难带来成就感。

So I think we all know we see a lot of patients with back pain in the emergency department and it's not always the most exciting or rewarding.

处理背痛患者本身就挺有挑战性，尤其是对老年患者来说，情况更复杂。

Sometimes it can be difficult to manage patients with back pain and that can be especially true in older patients with back pain.

大家可能觉得背痛多见于年轻人，但其实老年人同样会遭受严重的慢性下背痛困扰。

We think about young people as kind of more common, but old people can have pretty debilitating chronic low back pain as well.

问题在于，治疗时我们常用的一些药物——比如肌肉松弛剂、止痛药、非甾体抗炎药——对老年人副作用太大。

And part of the problem is that when you're trying to manage these people, a lot of the medications that we would typically use in younger people, things like muscle relaxants, sometimes pain medications, NSAIDs.

所以很多时候，我们能为他们做的其实非常有限。

They can have a lot of side effects so it can be difficult to do much for these people.

最近有一项有趣的研究，探讨了针灸在缓解老年患者长期背痛方面的效果。

So there was an interesting study that looked at acupuncture in management of long term back pain in older patients.

他们研究了65岁及以上的患者，一共纳入了800人，随机分成三组：常规医疗、12周针灸治疗，或24周针灸治疗，然后观察他们在六个月到一年期间的功能障碍情况。

They looked at 65 year olds and over and they actually got a fair number of patients, 800 patients, and they randomized them to either usual medical care, twelve weeks of acupuncture, or twenty four weeks of acupuncture, and they looked at disability at six months and out to 12.

结果发现，针灸在减轻功能障碍和改善活动能力方面明显更有效。

And they did find that acupuncture was significantly better at reducing the disability and kind of improving their function.

针灸非常安全，没什么风险。

Acupuncture is, you know, very safe.

虽然我们急诊科不太可能直接开展针灸治疗，但至少可以给患者一些希望，告诉他们还有长期缓解背痛的其他选择。

It's something that I think obviously we're not going to start in the emergency department unfortunately, but we can definitely refer them, give them some hope that there are some options for treatment that can deal with their back pain long term.

让他们知道，后续还有可以尝试的治疗方案。

Just kind of get in their head that there's something that could be done for follow-up.

这个研究挺有意思的。

So it's kind of interesting.

我觉得值得跟患者提一提，让他们知道确实有其他办法。

I think it's probably worth referring people telling them that there's some options.

谢谢大家。

Thanks everybody.

以上就是急诊医疗一分钟。

This has been the emergency medical minute.

感谢我们的赞助商CarePoint和HCA HealthONE。

Thank you to our sponsors CarePoint and HCA HealthONE.

他们的支持以及像您这样的听众，帮助我们持续为大众提供免费的医学教育。

Support from them and listeners like you helps us to continue providing free medical education to the masses.

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