The beneficial effects of non-drug therapy on osteoarticular disease

Osteoarticular disease (OD), including rheumatoid arthritis, knee osteoarthritis, lumbar disc bulge, and so on, is a category chronic and progressive disease with the primary character of pain and joint dysfunction. Serious patients are more prone to suffer from disability. The application of analgesic, NSAIDs, and surgical operation in Western medicine is always accompanied with the occurrence of side effects and high cost. Non-drug therapy of traditional Chinese medicine, including Yoga, acupuncture, massage, etc, is the main stream treatment of OD. The current special issue focuses on the field of non-drug therapy of OD.

The review by Si-Jia Dong, et al. summarized that in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis, the effectiveness of integrated therapeutic method containing massage is superior to that of single massage while the effectiveness of massage is superior to that of joint cavity injection. A clinical randomized controlled trial conducted by Zeng-Jie Gao, et al. showed that prone-positioned upside-done arch exercise, a kind of lumbodorsal muscles training originated from Yoga, showed better improvement in visual analogue score, bulge size and straight leg raise of patients with lumber disc bulge, suggesting the inhibitory effect on the progression of lumber disc bulge. Another clinical epidemiological study conducted by Cai-Ping Yue, et al. focuses on the effects of non-traditional risk factors on the incidence rate of cardiovascular diseases in patient with rheumatoid arthritis, including inflammation indexes, echocardiography and carotid ultrasound related indexes etc. Zheng Tan et al. recorded that with the help of electro-acupuncture, acupuncture at the unilateral points of Hegu (LI4), Waiguan (TB5), Shousanli (LI10), Quchi (LI11) and the bilateral points of Zusanli(ST36) can relieve pain, improve the local blood supply of nerve injury and then repair the damage of the nerve.