Although recent changes in HIV/AIDS treatment have resulted in dramatic declines in morbidity and mortality nationwide, disease management and quality of life among HIV/AIDS patients continue to be of concern. HIV/AIDS patients experience a range of symptoms associated with clinical manifestations of the disease, opportunistic infections, and medication side effects, all of which are strongly associated with quality of life (QoL). Many HIV/AIDS patients use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to help alleviate their symptoms and to improve their QoL. Among the various CAMs, acupuncture and relaxation response are commonly used regimens. These two therapies are thought to share common features and can complement each other in that acupuncture facilitates the effect of relaxation response and on the other hand relaxation response prepares the body to be more accessible to acupuncture. The clinical effects of each of these two therapies alone have been shown in numerous studies. However, no study has investigated the combined effects of these two regimens. We therefore propose an exploratory study to test the feasibility of conducting a double blind 2-arm controlled trial and to collect pilot data in preparation for a large-scale study to fully test the hypothesis that adding relaxation response to acupuncture will have an enhanced effect in HIV+ patients. For this pilot study, we will recruit 100 HIV+ patients who are currently receiving acupuncture. Study participants in the intervention group will listen to tapes with instructions to elicit the relaxation response as well as music routinely played while receiving acupuncture. Study participants in the control group will receive usual care that is listening to music while receiving acupuncture. Study participants in both groups will be given the respective tapes for home practice and they are asked to record the frequency of usage. We will assess both groups' symptoms and quality of life at baseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and upon completion of the intervention at 12 weeks. We will assess the feasibility using various indicators, including patient evaluation of the study. Ultimately, the qualitative analysis of patients' study evaluation as well as the longitudinal regression analysis results that compare the outcomes between the intervention and control groups will be used to help design a future large-scale study of the relaxation response intervention among HIV+ patients treated with acupuncture. ? ?
| Chang, Bei-Hung; Boehmer, Ulrike; Zhao, Yue et al. (2007) The combined effect of relaxation response and acupuncture on quality of life in patients with HIV: a pilot study. J Altern Complement Med 13:807-15 |
| Chang, Bei-Hung; Boehmer, Ulrike; Zhao, Yue et al. (2007) Relaxation response with acupuncture trial in patients with HIV: feasibility and participant experiences. J Altern Complement Med 13:719-24 |
