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Acupuncture is well-known in the Western world, especially for treating pain. But the use of needles may scare children, making it difficult to treat them. Now one hospital in Germany is using a novel acupuncture treatment that uses lasers instead of needles to treat children.
Huang Rui has more.
Reporter:
Dr. Barbara Niehaus received acupuncture training in Beijing, and became an accredited practitioner in Germany.
She has started an experiment of using lasers to treat pain in children in a hopsital in Bonn.
Even though the laser beams are not entirely painless, they have a different psychological effect on children than needles. Children show no fear of the light that comes from laser needles. Test results showed that on a pain scale from one to ten, laser acupuncture reduced discomfort by two points. And scientific evidence suggests there are only small differences between the use of both types of needles. Niehaus explains,
"There"s a pain measurement, and the patient tells us how strong the pain is. Pain is measured with help of a scale, with this scale we can judge and ask the patient whether pain has diminished, increased or stayed the same. With help of this pain scale you can tell if the pain was more or less."
Chinese traditional doctors have practiced acupuncture for centuries. According to this discipline, needles help treat a series of diseases as well as pain. Needles need to go into specific points in the body.
Hong Kong Dr. Lucilly Hung treats many patients with the help of acupuncture.
She has heard about laser acupuncture, and, although she prefers the traditional method, she says she can understand why people would opt for the laser.
"When people compare a needle and a laser, of course they"ll think that a needle hurts and a laser doesn"t."
Dr. Hung doesn"t use laser acupuncture, even when dealing with children. She treats them with metal needles and feels that its effects are better than using the new method. As for the pain, Dr. Hung says the body quickly gets used to the needle, and an experienced practitioner should be precise and quick with the needles in order to minimize the patient"s discomfort.
"The pain depends on the technique of the person inserting the needle - how fast they put it in - in order to minimize the pain for the patient. Of course it"s natural for humans when a needle goes through them to feel some pain."
In the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong, Dr. Hung is also treating Western patients. She says she has found no difference between her patients from different parts of the world.
In the United States, future doctors and nurses are learning about acupuncture and herbs along with anatomy and physiology at a growing number of medical schools. It"s an example of how alternative medicine has entered the mainstream.
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