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Managing Rotator Cuff Injury: Can Acupuncture Add Increments to the Current Protocol? Inference from a Case Study

Sanjeev Rastogi, MD, CAc, Consulting Physician, Department of Holistic Medicine,BMCRC, Vatsala Hospital,Tulsi Das Marg, Lucknow, UP, India.
Rajeev Rastogi, MSc, BNYS, Assistant Director (Naturopathy), Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy, Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health, Government of India, New Delhi, India.
Ranjana Rastogi, MD, Head, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, State Ayurvedic College and Hospital, Lucknow, India.

The shoulder is one of the most versatile but also most unstable and vulnerable joints of the body. It is vulnerable to a variety of injuries, of which rotator cuff injuries predominate. These require specific tissue-targeted therapy to heal the point injuries. Conventional physiotherapy has been found to be limited in its efficacy as it offers superficial physical measures that cannot reach the traumatized tissue. Acupuncture, by virtue of its mode of application, can reach deeper in the traumatized tissue and offer substantial pain relief along with rapid healing of the trauma through ways that are yet to be fully understood. Acupuncture therapy for the management of rotator cuff injury seems to be the most productive way to reduce the intervention time and improve the net outcome, as observed in the case studied.
Key words: acupuncture, rotator cuff, macrotrauma, tendon sheath.