Description of Acupuncture

Acupuncture falls under the broad heading of Bodywork. Acupuncture is the practice of inserting needles into the body to activate a change in its state of functioning. This ancient Eastern practice is based on the belief that health is determined by chi, the vital life force that flows through every living thing. The Eastern peoples believe that this energy moves through the body along pathways called meridians. When the flow energy is balanced, the individual enjoys good health. When the flow gets interrupted for some reason, the individual may have various problems, including pain. Acupuncture is used to restore proper energy flow and restoration of health.

History of Acupuncture

Acupuncture has a 5,000 year history and many variations are practiced today depending upon the training lineage of the practitioner. For thousands of years it has been used to treat and prevent disease and other disorders of the human organism. In the East, it developed as part of the indigenous health care system that is called traditional Oriental medicine. There are several cultures from which acupuncture comes as it is practiced in the United States today and the practice has a different name in each culture. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) came from China, Tong Family Style came from Taiwan, Eight Constitutions from Korea, Meridian Therapy (MT) from Japan, Leamington Acupuncture (LA) and other wise known as 5 element acupuncture, Ryodoraku from Japan, auriculotherapy from France, electroacupuncture according to Voll-EAV from Germany, and new acupuncture from China.

History continues to be made in the area of acupuncture in the United States. Per a Washington Post article, dated March 17, 2009, " ... In 2007, NCCAM spent about $9.1 million on acupuncture research. While more is planned, Brent Bauer, an internist at the Mayo Clinic and director of its complementary and alternative medicine program, said the research is in its "toddlerhood."

"Some of the most interesting research on acupuncture is how it might impact brain functioning," said Richard Nahin, the acting director for research at NCCAM. He said magnetic resonance imaging observations during acupuncture have shown specific areas of the brain that respond to the treatment. The field of pain relief is getting the most attention in these studies, but they hold promise in many areas, said Nahin.

Bauer also said he has seen remarkable results in pain management, adding, "I don't fully understand how it works."

In 2004, researchers at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland tested the effects of acupuncture on 570 people over 50 with osteoarthritis in the knee. The patients were split into three groups: The group that received education about their condition recorded a 22 percent improvement in function; those who received sham acupuncture, a placebo-like process using real needles but not on known acupuncture points, improved 31 percent' and those who were treated with true acupuncture recorded improvement of 40 percent.

The benefits of the actual acupuncture showed up over time, with most of those who got relief feeling it after 14 weeks of treatment.

Other preliminary research shows promise when acupuncture is used as part of treatment for infertility, obesity, post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression and pain relief. But many of those studies were small, and more work needs to be done for them to be validated.

However, other studies have found no difference between sham acupuncture and the real thing. An analysis of 13 studies of pain treatment with acupuncture, published online this month by the journal BMJ, concluded there was little difference in the effect of real, sham and no acupuncture.

Bauer said that patients are increasingly asking about incorporating acupuncture into their care and that doctors, especially younger ones, are more willing to give it a chance. "I would call it evolutionary," he said of physicians' attitudes. "Twenty years ago there was more antagonism and much more hard-core skepticism. Now there is a lot more of an open attitude."

Brian Berman, director of the University of Maryland center, came to acupuncture after feeling that something was missing in his practice of family medicine.

"I was well trained with acute problems such as an asthma attack, trauma, heart attack," he said. "But when it came to chronic pain, I didn't have all the answers. Eventually that led me to taking the acupuncture course in 1983, then further training in the U.K., and I incorporated it my practice."

When he first suggested it to his patients, he said, they were skeptical. They were looking for a "magic pill" that would cure them: "Sometimes we had tried the pill and they still had their problems, and I would ask, 'Would you consider acupuncture?' " Often, it worked.

Linda Lee, a gastroenterologist who is director of Johns Hopkins's new Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center, said it's very hard to find scientific support for acupuncture, but she sees anecdotal evidence.

"We have this double standard," she said of the medical profession. "We are completely comfortable using pharmacological therapies that have not been subjected to clinical trials for the purposes we use them, but we are super suspicious of alternative therapies that haven't been tested with randomized placebo trials. From a research point of view, I understand the criticism. But we physicians are in the healing business, and we have to go beyond the pharmacological solutions to understand the whole person," she said. "Acupuncturists start with the whole person."

At the Hopkins center, acupuncture is used in conjunction with more-conventional medical treatment, said Lee.

"I have been very impressed by how much the acupuncturists pay attention to everything else going on in the body," said Lee, who is not trained in acupuncture. "I'm a specialist. I've been trained to hone in on one system."

Elise Feingold, 51, a human geneticist from Silver Spring, began trying acupuncture seven years ago for chronic back and knee pain. Her father had gotten some pain relief from it, and so she felt it might be beneficial.

Feingold says she reaped unexpected benefits: dramatic and rapid relief from hot flashes that had been waking her seven or eight times a night, as well as relief from 11 months of coccyx (tailbone) pain that her doctors had been unable to help.

"You see benefits over a period of time," said Feingold. "You're not always going to have that home run like [with] the hot flashes."

She said she has also found relief for less tangible and perhaps more emotionally based issues such as sleeplessness and stress, some of which she attributes to the time the practitioner spends talking with her. "There's a therapy aspect to this, too," she said. While she has no acute issue, she gets acupuncture about once a month for general health maintenance.

"I decided to leave my science brain aside," she said. "I felt it had helped other people, and it might help me. I don't know how it works, but it's got 4,000 years of Chinese medicine behind it."

April 2009: During a Q & A session of a Presidential Town Hall meeting in St. Louis, one licensed acupuncturist and massage therapist in Florissant, Mo., got to ask President Barack Obama what must certainly be one of the most important questions in the minds of all alternative health patients. Below is a transcript of the question and President Obama's answer, which does appear to be positive toward the inclusion of alternative therapies into health care reform.

Q: I'm a licensed acupuncturist and licensed massage therapist in Florissant. And so...

President Obama: I could use one right now. (Laughter.) My back is stiff. I've been working hard.

Q: I'll be happy to help you. (Laughter.) And this kind of fits into what you were just talking about as far as health care. I'm wondering, as a practitioner of Oriental medicine, knowing that the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization have discovered through their studies that alternative medicine often is more cost-effective and very effective, how will alternative medicine fit in your new health care program?

President Obama: Well, look, my attitude is that we should - we should do what works. So I think it is pretty well documented through scientific studies that acupuncture, for example, can be very helpful in relieving certain things like migraines and other ailments -- or are at least as effective as more intrusive interventions.

I will let the science guide me. We just swore in an outstanding new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, former governor of Kansas. (Applause.) It's good to see that a Jayhawk got applause on this side of the border here. (Laughter.) But she's going to do an outstanding job. And my charge to her is, as we're going through health care reform, let's find out what works.

I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. So giving children early checkups, making sure that they get immunized, making sure that they are diagnosed if they've got eyesight problems, making sure that they're taught proper nutrition to avoid a life of obesity - those are all issues that we have some control over. And if we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long-term.

Unfortunately, the hardest thing to do in politics - and certainly in health care reform - has been to get policymakers to make investments early that will have long-term payoffs. Because people - their attitude is, well, I'll be out of office by the time that kid grows up; and the fact that they're healthy, that doesn't help me. And in the private-sector insurance system, oftentimes insurers make the same calculation. Their attitude is, well, people change jobs enough for us to pay for the preventive medicine now when the problem may not crop up for another 20 years and they'll be long out of our system, so we don't want to reimburse it because it will make things more costly. That's the logic of our health care system that we're going to have to change.

The recovery package put a huge amount in prevention. We are, in our budget, calling for significant increases in prevention. And my hope is that, working in a bipartisan fashion, we are going to be able to get a health care reform bill on my desk before the end of the year that will start seeing the kinds of investments that will make everybody healthier.

A complete transcript of the April 29, 2009, Town Hall meeting may be found at http://enduringamerica.com/2009/04/29/transcript-president-obama-at-st-louis-town-hall-meeting-29-april. The question is at approximately the 21:09 mark on the second video.

What to expect from Acupuncture

An Acupuncture session is one on one with the practitioner. Each session lasts approximately 30-60 minutes. Most practitioners will insert thin needles that are the size of a hair on your arm at specific points on the body, depending upon the individual's complaints. The treatment is usually painless although there may occasionally be some slight discomfort. Some practitioners will use electronic stimulation that may or may not penetrate the skin. Relief may be experienced after one treatment or after a series of treatments.

When you consider a practitioner, make certain of several things:

-- Any needles used must be single-use and disposable.

-- If herbs are prescribed, check all interactions with prescription drugs.

-- Check with your insurance carrier in advance of treatment: Some cover acupuncture and others don't. Still others will cover it to treat only certain conditions.

Any acupuncture practitioner you consider should be licensed. Requirements vary by jurisdiction. See references section for the websites that can help.

Cost

The cost will run from about $50.00-$90.00 per session. Prices will vary with the experience level of the practitioner and location.

Uses for Acupuncture

Acupuncture helps an individual to relieve chronic pain, and is used for treating addictions, mental disorders, and many physical complaints. In some cases, acupuncture is used for anesthesia or in conjunction with anesthesia to lower the dosage required and increase the sedative effect.

The World Health Organization has recognized acupuncture as useful for conditions that include those of the upper respiratory tract such as acute sinusitis, acute rhinitis, common cold, acute tonsillitis; the respiratory system such as acute bronchitis, bronchial asthma; disorders of the eye such as acute conjunctivitis, central retinitis, myopia in children, cataract (without complications); disorders of the mouth such as toothache and post-extraction pain, gingivitis, acute and chronic pharyngitis; gastro-intestinal disorders such as spasms of esophagus and cardia, hiccough, gastroptosis, acute and chronic gastritis, gastric hyperacidity, chronic duodenal ulcer (pain relief), acute duodenal ulcer (without complications), acute and chronic colitis, acute bacillary dysentery, constipation, diarrhea, paralytic ileus; and neurological and musculoskeletal disorders such as headache and migraine, trigeminal neuralgia, facial palsy (early stage), pareses following a stroke, peripheral neuropathies, sequelae of poliomyelitis (early state), Meniere's disease, neurogenic bladder dysfunction, nocturnal enuresis, intercostals neuralgia, cervicobrachial syndrome, frozen shoulder and tennis elbow, sciatica, low back pain, and osteoarthritis.

The National Institute of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine has funded preliminary studies of acupuncture for treatment of: major depressive episodes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, used moxibustion to turn babies from a breach birth. These studies were small but showed a definite indication that acupuncture was helpful. According to the NIH Consensus Statement, acupuncture has been shown to be effective in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. NIH believes that further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture interventions will be useful. Doctors have found that using acupuncture lowers the need for conventional pain-killing drugs and thus reduces the risk of side effects for patients who take the drugs.

Acupuncture treatment has been shown to reduce mild to moderate hypertension, which applies to those with systolic pressure in the 140-170 range; diastolic pressure in the high 80s to low 90s. Though it has been shown to help in the majority of cases, not every patient responds. A patient should proceed with caution. The acupuncturist and MD who is prescribing should both monitor your blood pressure during treatment. Medications need not be adjusted until a change is noted. Once your blood pressure is reduced you should continue to monitor it and regularly have check ups by both health care providers.

Stop Eczema Itch
An estimated 15 million people in the United States suffer from eczema, which usually looks like dry, scaly red skin patches accompanied by intense itching. Standard treatment can include corticosteroids, which have some serious side effects.

Now, a group of German researchers may have an answer to provide relief from the itching.

Thirty people with eczema were treated with acupuncture right after being exposed to an allergen such as dust mites or pollen. It turned out that the subjects all reported lower levels of itchiness. Even more interesting, when they got a second exposure to the allergen, their flare-ups were less severe.

The researchers concluded: "Acupuncture at the correct points showed a significant reduction in type I hypersensitivity itch in patients with atopic eczema."

Reference: Pfab F, Huss-Marp J, Gatti A, et al. Influence of acupuncture on type I hypersensitivity itch and the wheal and flare response in adults with atopic eczema - a blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial. Allergy. [Epub ahead of print]

Stronger Evidence for Treating Tension Headache With Acupuncture
Tension headaches, which have been described as a dull pain, almost as if there was a tight band around the head, are one of the most common forms of headaches. Individual studies have shown promising results for the use of acupuncture to treat this type of headache, but a 2001 study that combined the results from 26 individual studies, six of which focused on tension headache, found, "The quality and amount of evidence are not fully convincing." The authors of this study added, "There is an urgent need for well-planned, large-scale studies to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of acupuncture under real-life conditions." Now, an updated study has found that the evidence for acupuncture in treating tension headaches is indeed convincing.

In the January 2009 edition of the Cochrane Library, Linde and colleagues examined the results of 12 randomized trials, with a total of 2,317 participants. They were looking to determine whether acupuncture is more effective than no treatment or just routine care; more effective than fake acupuncture treatment; and as effective as other interventions (physiotherapy, massage or relaxation) in reducing headache frequency.

In those studies that compared acupuncture treatment to no/routine care, 47 percent of patients receiving acupuncture reported a decrease in the number of headache days by at least 50 percent, compared to 16 percent of patients receiving either no or routine care. For those studies comparing true and fake acupuncture, 50 percent of patients receiving true acupuncture reported a decrease of the number of headache days by at least half, compared to 41 percent of patients receiving sham acupuncture.

The researchers concluded, "In the previous version of this review, evidence in support of acupuncture for tension-type headache was considered insufficient. Now, with six additional [tension headache] trials, the authors conclude that acupuncture could be a valuable nonpharmacological tool in patients with frequent episodic or chronic tension-type headaches."

For more information on the many benefits of Oriental medicine, visit http://www.acupuncturetoday.com.

Pediatric Hospital Using Acupuncture for Pain Management
Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, which was ranked among the top 10 pediatric hospitals last year by U.S. News & World Report, is providing acupuncture services to patients in the Pain Management Clinic. The services are offered for free, one day a week in the hospitalÕs outpatient clinic.

According to Jeffrey I. Gold, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Pain Management Clinic at Childrens Hospital, the patients, most of whom are between the ages of 13 and 19, all say that they feel more comfortable and relaxed after receiving the treatments and have been coming back on a regular basis. Gold, who heads up the acupuncture clinic explained that, at least when it comes to treating pediatric pain, "we are not getting to the core of the problem with regular medicine." He likened using acupuncture treatments for these patients to re-setting the nervous system, rather than just treating symptoms, as is done with Western medicine. "It's all about health and wellness."

Pain Management for Spinal Cord Trauma? Most neuropathic pain can be improved by acupuncture treatment. In general, you would want to have 12 to 20 treatments, which is more than average due to the trauma. This is an initial series and depending on outcome, you will know how to proceed. You need to talk to an acupuncturist to find out what can be done in your individual circumstance to find out if acupuncture is appropriate for you. (This is true even if the injury was 10 years or more ago.)

Acupuncture Benefits Low Back Pain
Because Americans spend a great deal of money ($37 billion annually) dealing with back pain and because the economy suffers another $19.8 billion in lost worker productivity due to back pain, there has been extensive research on the use of acupuncture for treating back pain. A new study published in the May 11, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine has added even further to the literature on the value of acupuncture in treating back pain.

Daniel C. Cherkin, PhD, and colleagues examined a group of 638 patients suffering from back pain to determine whether acupuncture is superior to usual care for treating back pain, and to see if needle insertion at individualized points is the mechanism of action by which acupuncture works best. A total of 10 acupuncture treatments were provided over the course of eight weeks.

At the 8-week followup, all groups of patients showed improvement. However, the usual care group only improved by 2.1 points (scored on a disability questionnaire), as opposed to the individualized, standardized, and simulated acupuncture groups, which improved by 4.4, 4.5 and 4.4 points, respectively. The greater improvement for the acupuncture groups over usual care continued all the way to 52 weeks, at the end of the study. Of those patients receiving real acupuncture, only 11 reported any side effects.

Interestingly, at the end of the study, there was little difference between the four acupuncture treatment groups in terms of effectiveness. The researchers speculated that this may mean that acupuncture's actual mechanism of action may not be clear and that further research is warranted.

Nevertheless, they concluded, "Compared with usual care, individualized acupuncture, standardized acupuncture, and simulated acupuncture had beneficial and persisting effects on chronic back pain. These treatments resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in function. ... For clinicians and patients seeking a relatively safe and effective treatment for a condition for which conventional treatments are often ineffective, various methods of acupuncture point stimulation appear to be reasonable options, even though the mechanism of action remains unclear."
For more information, go to http://www.acupuncturetoday.com.

Menopause Treatment
According to Climacteric, October 2007, acupuncture reduces the frequency and severity of hot flashes, mood swings, and sleep disturbances by about 50%. A minimum of six acupuncture treatments may be required to see reliable results. An impressive 80% of people who try acupuncture significantly benefit. According to Menopause 1995, a Swedish study found that electroacupuncture reduced hot flashes by half. In February 2007, BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine reported that in Norway, where acupuncture is commonly used, individualized electroacupuncture reduced hot flashes by 77%. There is a large follow-up clinical trial underway there currently. Harvard and Stanford medical schools are also conducting studies, two of which have shown that acupuncture reduced nighttime hot flash severity by 24.5 to 28% using clinicians of Chinese descent.

June 15, 2009, Acupuncture Today: San Francisco Giants have a team acupuncturist, haro Ogawa, MSOM, LAc, CMT, ATC. He previously worked for the New York Mets, and privately he has worked for the Golden State Warriors basketball team, NASCAR drivers, and Japanese national baseball team. A big part of the Giants' early success was due to Ogawa's 46-year-old star client and future Hall-of-Famer, Randy "The Big Unit" Johnson. Johnson had never tried acupuncture before this season. The results have been impressive. A five-time Cy Young Award winner, Johnson is well past the time when most pitchers retire. Yet, he carried a winning record into the end of June and hadn't missed a start. While he may not be able to throw 100-mph fastballs like he could in his prime, he is still averaging more than eight strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

David Groeschner, head athletic trainer for the Giants, told Acupuncture Today that Ogawa's work with the players has been great. "The players love him and love the treatments. In our game, we are out there every day, so the players get sore and banged up. They definitely get back into the game more quickly because of his work."

From AcupunctureToday.com, it is possible that those with BPPV or benign positional vertigo, an inner ear disorder may benefit from acupuncture. With this condition, the eyes and ears send conflicting signals to the brain, which can cause dizziness, nausea and overall bad feelings. AcupunctureToday says acupuncture treatment is available for these types of symptoms. There are several possible approaches and several possible treatment protocols. There are local points and systemic points related to the energetics of certain organs. You would see an acupuncturist for a better evaluation and treatment plan. In general, you would want to try 10 to 15 treatments and see how you respond.

Acupuncture Can Alleviate Depression During Pregnancy

Depression with pregnancy is more common than you might think. One study estimates that about 13 percent of pregnant women will experience depression during their second trimester. This is made even more difficult because pregnant women cannot take any antidepressants.

Now, a study in the March issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology may provide a way to help these women. A group of researchers at Stanford University provided one of three treatments to 150 pregnant women with major depression. The women received either acupuncture specific to depression, general acupuncture or massage therapy for 12 sessions over eight weeks. At the end of the treatments, they found that the women who received depression-specific acupuncture treatment had a 63 percent response rate, compared to either of the other two control treatments (44 percent).

Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that depression-specific acupuncture could be considered a "viable treatment option."

For more information on the many benefits of Oriental medicine, visit http://www.acupuncturetoday.com.

Reference: Manber R, Schnyer RN, Lyell D, et al. Acupuncture for depression during pregnancy: a randomized controlled trial. Obstet Gynecol 2010 Mar;115(3):511-20.

Acupuncture Regarding Strokes There are a variety of symptoms people get after a stroke. Most strokes are caused by the same conditions as a heart attack, except it happens in the brain. A clot that had formed in a blood vessel blocks the flow of blood to tissue, either heart or brain, and the tissue dies, causing organ damage. In the heart, muscle dies and the heart may no longer function well. In the brain, nerve tissue dies and activities associated with the nervous system are adversely affected. Acupuncture can help the body repair or compensate for lost nerve function. Patients respond differently to treatment. In addition, there are other treatment modalities, such as Chinese medicinal herbs, exercises and acupressure. There is treatment available for your symptom of change in vision. In general, after an examination to determine if acupuncture treatment is appropriate for you, you would have a series of 10 to 15 treatments and then determine how you are able to respond. (From http://www.AcupunctureToday.com)

Certification

There are a number of ways an acupuncturist can be credentialed. Some states handle their own credentialing and the national acupuncture organizations can most likely provide you with information about your state. Maryland and West Virginia are two states that do not require an NCCAOM license because these states issue their own. Medical doctors have a different type of credentialing. And there is a national accreditation organization. In short, your acupuncturist should be able to provide you with a copy of their certification and/or state license to practice.

National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) is assisted in its examination administration by Applied Measurement Professionals (AMP), one of the leading testing services in the United States. AMP is the professional testing agency contracted by the NCCAOM to assist in the administration, scoring and analysis of the NCCAOM examinations. AMP's services also include the reporting of scores to candidates who take the examinations. AMP is a research and development firm that conducts professional competency assessment research and provides examination services for a number of credentialing programs.

The NCCAOM is a member of the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA). It is also accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), which represents the highest voluntary certification standards in the United States.

The expertise and policies of these three groups -- AMP, NOCA, and NCCA -- have contributed to NCCAOM ís development of a certification process that gives full recognition to the diversity of acupuncture in the U.S., while also providing a unified set of national standards for safe and competent practice.

The first NCCAOM Comprehensive Written Examination (CWE) in Acupuncture (ACP) was given in March 1985. It was developed during a three-year period with the help of leading acupuncturists throughout the nation. Throughout this development period the NCCAOM followed national guidelines for certification and testing in order to ensure a fair, valid, and reliable examination. The administration of the exam was a milestone event in the growth of the profession in the United States.

The Practical Examination of Point Location Skills (PEPLS) was added as a component of NCCAOM ís Acupuncture Examination in September 1989. The Clean Needle Technique (CNT) portion was added to the acupuncture written exam two years later. This separately scored CNT exam was merged into the Comprehensive Written Examination in Acupuncture in 1998.

In 1989, the profession asked the NCCAOM to develop a certification program measuring entry-level competency in the practice of Chinese herbology. After three years of research, the organization opened the Credentials Documentation Review (CDR) period for Certification in Chinese Herbology. The first national Comprehensive Written Examination in Chinese Herbology was given in April 1995.

The NCCAOM then developed a third certification program in response to requests from the profession. NCCAOM Certification in Asian Bodywork Therapy (ABT) was offered in 1996 through Credentials Documentation Review. CDR for certification in Asian Bodywork Therapy closed in December 1997. The first Comprehensive Written Examination in ABT was given in October 2000.

In an effort to fully represent the expanding roster of its certification programs, the NCCAOM changed its name from the National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncturists (NCCA) to the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. A new logo was also adopted symbolizing the now-global nature of the Oriental healing professions.
NCCAOM does provide lists of certified acupuncturists. Contact info:
NCCAOM
11 Canal Center Plaza, Suite 300
Alexandria, Virginia 22314, U.S.A.
Phone: 703-548-9004
Fax: 703-548-9079
E-mail: info@nccaom.org
www.nccaom.org

For nationwide referrals (U.S.A.) for licensed or registered practitioners, you can also contact:
American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
610-266-1433

or

National Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Alliance
253-851-6896
www.acuall.org

or

Traditional Sophia Institute for the Healing Arts
7750 Montpelier Road
Laurel, MD 20723
410-888-9048
301-725-1674
800-735-2968
http://www.tai.edu/

Accredited acupuncture schools in the U.S. typically require 3,000 hours of training specific to acupuncture. The philosophy and approach are completely different than that of Western medicine.

American Academy of Medical Acupuncture (AAMA) was founded in 1987 by a group of physicians who were graduates of the "Medical Acupuncture for Physicians" training programs (200 credit hours of acupuncture training beyond the physician training) sponsored by University Extension, UCLA School of Medicine. The AAMA is the sole physician-only professional acupuncture society in North America, accepting members from a diversity of training backgrounds. Physician members represent all of the disciplines of medical acupuncture currently practiced in the United States and Canada.

Membership requirements for the Academy have been established in accordance with the training guidelines created by the World Federation of Acupuncture-Moxibustion Societies. The Academy represents the highest standards of training and proficiency among physicians practicing acupuncture in North America.

American Academy of Medical Acupuncture
5820 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 500
Los Angeles, CA 90036
213-937-5514
www.acupuncture.com

State Law varies across the 50 United States. Some states do not recognize acupuncture as a treatment modality. Most now accept NCCAOM certification or have their own licensing requirements. For specific state information, please see
http://acupuncture.com/StateLaws/laws-all.htm or contact your own state's medical supervision agency.

References / Literature

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