Overview
In this study, a 12-week pragmatic, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial will be conducted to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture for the treatment of long Covid neuropsychiatric symptoms and provide reference for clinical non-drug treatment.
Description
This is a pragmatic, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial on acupuncture for treating neuropsychiatric symptoms in long Covid patients. A total of 160 participants will be diagnosed by a registered Chinese medicine practitioner and randomly assigned to the acupuncture and the control group with a 1:1 ratio. The acupuncture group will receive 24 sessions of interventions during a 12-week treatment duration (2 sessions per week) and will be followed up at week 18. The control group will only receive conventional therapy.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- meet the clinical diagnosis of Long COVID by the World Health Organization (WHO), with no neuropsychiatric symptoms 1 year before infection with Covid-19, and continue to have at least one neuropsychiatric symptom for 2 months after SARS-CoV-2 turned negative 3 months above;
- aged 12 to 80 years;
- willing and able to consent, and complete all assessment and study procedures
Exclusion Criteria:
- patients with a history of chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms;
- cardiovascular diseases pre-existing to the Covid-19 episode such as arrhythmia, heart failure, myocardial infarction, and patients with cardiac pacemakers;
- documented pre-existing history of psychiatric illness, including substance abuse;
- suicidal tendencies (attempted suicide in the 12 months before the study);
- any chronic or remote neurological disorder (i.e. stroke, head trauma, epilepsy, tumor);
- those who participated in other clinical trials within one month;
- pregnant or lactating female patients;
- have surgery within two months before the study or will have a scheduled surgery during the study;
- acute brain injury or acute encephalopathy from another etiology than Covid-19 (e.g., sepsis, liver or renal failure, alcohol or drug withdrawal, drug toxicity);
- open-heart cardiac surgery or cardiac arrest during the last 6 months;
- patients who received acupuncture treatment 1 month before the start of the study;
- patients who were unable to complete the assessment during screening due to severe mental, cognitive, or emotional impairment