Acupuncture Trial Protocol for Post-Stroke Vertigo

A multicenter randomized controlled trial protocol details a study enrolling 234 patients with post-stroke vascular vertigo. The protocol compares acupuncture, sham acupuncture, and active drug interventions over a 20-week period, including follow-ups. It outlines primary and secondary outcome measures such as the Dizziness Handicap Inventory and multimodal MRI.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI) scores and treatment group assignment (acupuncture, sham, drug).
• Compare Expectation Rating Scale (ERS) results across the three intervention arms to assess placebo effects.
• Correlate clinical outcomes from the Dizziness and Anxiety Rating Scale (DARS) with data from transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (TCD).
• Track safety profiles by analyzing adverse event records documented for each participant group.

Strengths

• The study is a double-blind, randomized controlled trial with a planned enrollment of 234 patients, providing a structured design for causal inference.
• The protocol includes multiple outcome measures such as DHI, DARS, SF-36, TCD, and MRI, offering a multi-faceted view of treatment effects.
• It has a defined temporal structure with a 3-week treatment period and follow-up assessments at 8 and 20 weeks for longitudinal analysis.

Limitations

• The dataset is a single PDF file (1019.8 KB) containing a study protocol, not the raw or tabular trial results data.
• The sample size of 234 patients, while planned, may be insufficient for detecting subtle effects or for extensive subgroup analyses.
• The geographic scope is limited to four subcenters in China, which may limit the generalizability of findings to other populations.

Provenance

Source

Lina Pang, published on figshare.

Collection Method

Generated as the study protocol for a planned multicenter, randomized, sham-controlled clinical trial.

Time Range

The trial protocol outlines a study timeline including a 1-week induction, 3-week treatment, and follow-ups at 8 and 20 weeks.

Freshness

The protocol file was last updated on 2026-03-25.

Geography

The trial involves four subcenters, with ethics approval from Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated Hospital in China.