Study on the Impact of Targeted Functional Acupuncture on Quality of Life in Patients with Upper Limb Spasticity After Stroke

This study aimed to explore the effect of targeted functional acupuncture on improving muscle tone and activities of daily living in patients with upper limb spasticity after stroke. A total of 60 eligible patients admitted between March 2023 and June 2024 were randomly assigned to an experimental group (targeted functional acupuncture combined with basic rehabilitation, n=30) or a control group (conventional electroacupuncture combined with basic rehabilitation, n=30), both undergoing a 28-day intervention period. The Modified Ashworth Scale grade, resting angles of upper limb joints, and Modified Barthel Index score were assessed before and after the intervention. After the intervention, the improvement in ADL score was significantly greater in the experimental group (24.6 ± 18.3) compared to the control group (10.4 ± 15.2), with a statistically significant within-group difference (P < 0.001). The proportion of patients achieving significant muscle tone improvement (decrease ≥ 1 grade) was 60.0% in the experimental group, significantly higher than the 26.7% in the control group (P = 0.019). Furthermore, the number of "not testable" joints decreased from 38 to 22 in the experimental group, corresponding to an improvement rate of 42.1%, which was also significantly better than the 14.3% observed in the control group (P = 0.042). These results indicate that targeted functional acupuncture can effectively alleviate upper limb spasticity, improve muscle tone distribution, and significantly enhance the activities of daily living in post-stroke patients, supporting its use as an effective intervention in the rehabilitation of this population.