The size and anatomical location of stroke lesions is evaluated
by magnetic resonance imaging using subtraction lesion
analysis.14 Exclusion criteria were the following: (1) no motor
deficit, (2) hemodynamic instability, (3) history of dementia,
and (4) inability to give consent because of impaired cognition
or receptive aphasia. The authors treated 25 patients with
YNSA and the other 25 subjects were the nontreated control
group (Fig. 1.) All patients gave informed consent to participate
in the study, which was performed according to the
guidelines of the local ethics committee. The participants were
not informed of the possibility of being assigned to either
acupuncture or no acupuncture group. Ethics Committee approval
was granted and the trial was performed in accordance
with the Declaration of Helsinki.
All the recruited patients went under rehabilitation program
using the Hungarian standard rehabilitation protocol.
Twenty-five (25) of the patients received additional acupuncture
therapy using the dry needling method, and these
patients were regarded as the acupuncture group. The other
25 patients without acupuncture therapy were regarded as
the control group, and they only received necessary rehabilitation
therapies. The average age was 58.6 – 10.4 and
59.8 – 9.6 years (in the acupuncture and control group, respectively).
In both groups, 18 patients had ischemic and 7
had hemorrhagic stroke (Table 1).