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Acupuncture for PTSD

NCT02869646 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 92

Last updated 2024-04-18

Study results available
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Summary

Current treatments for Veterans with PTSD include medications and therapy where the patient talks about traumatic events in order to desensitize to them. While these treatments work for many, a large minority of Veterans do not want medications or exposure therapy. The investigators developed an acupuncture (ACU) treatment for PTSD in order to broaden treatment options. The investigators' first study showed that it helped most people. However, the investigators need better scientific evidence that it works by comparing ACU to a placebo, such as "sham" acupuncture (fewer needles in non-important sites) and determining if ACU alters abnormal physiology in PTSD. In this study 90 Veterans will be randomly assigned (like a coin flip) to receive either ACU or sham. The investigators expect to find that the ACU treated patients have more improvement in PTSD and in physiology (less startle reaction - assessed non-invasively using skin sensors) than the patients in the sham group. This study will provide information to support the use of acupuncture for PTSD at the VA, which will expand treatment options.

Conditions

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Procedure: Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a general term indicating the insertion and stimulation of needles at one or more prescribed points in order to effect the biology of the individual.

PROCEDURE

Procedure: Sham acupuncture

Sham acupuncture is a general term indicating the use of needles, whether inserted or not, at points on the body that are not expected to have a clinically significant biological effect.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Analydata, Inc.

    collaborator INDUSTRY

  • VA Office of Research and Development

    lead FED

Principal Investigators

  • Michael Hollifield, MD · VA Long Beach Healthcare System, Long Beach, CA

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
55 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2018-04-05
Primary Completion
2022-06-15
Completion
2022-12-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT02869646 on ClinicalTrials.gov