OBJECTIVETo observe effects of heavenly stem-prescription of point selection of the needling methods of midnight-noon ebb-flow on motorial and neurological functional deficit of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases.

METHODSThe patients were randomly divided into a Ziwu Liuzhu group and a channel acupoint selection group. In the channel acupoint selection group, Jianyu (LI 15), Quchi (LI 11), Waiguan (TE 5), Zusanli (ST 36) were selected, combined with selected acupoints by syndrome differentiation. In the Ziwu Liuzhu group, on the basis of the channel acupoint selection group, according to the principle "the acupoints of the yang-channel were opened at yang-day-yang-hour and the acupoints of the yin-channel were opened at yin-day-yin-hour", and acupoints were selected by the day-hour acupoint-opening method of the Ziwu Liuzhu Najia method in Zhenjiu Daquan. The patients in the both groups began to be treated at the Chen hour (7:00-9:00) or Si hour (9:00-11:00) in the morning, 10 times constituting one course. They were treated for 3 courses. Improvement of the motor function symptom cumulative score, Fugl-Meyer (FMA) and improvement of neurological functional deficit were investigated.

RESULTSThe FMA score (36.13 +/- 21.80) after treatment was significantly lower than (73.50 +/- 21.53) before treatment (P<0.01) in the Ziwu Liuzhu group, and (54.43 +/- 20.89) after treatment was significantly lower than (62.27 +/- 22.91) before treatment (P<0.05) in the channel acupoint selection group; the neurological functional deficit score (15.40 +/- 9.34) after treatment was significantly lower than (27.17 +/- 10.81) before treatment in the Ziwu Liuzhu group, and (23.97 +/- 1.30) was lower than (27.97 +/- 7.72) before treatment in the channel acupoint selection group. After treatment, FMA and the neurological functional scores significantly improved in the Ziwu Liuzhu group as compared with those in the channel acupoint selection group (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONZiwu Liuzhu Najia point-selection method can effectively improve both nervous function and motor function in the patient of ischemic cerebrovascular disease.