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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Pediatric Neurology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1502023
Acupuncture combined with language training for aphasia in children with cerebral palsy: a systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis
Provisionally accepted- 1 First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nankai District, Tianjin, China
- 2 National Clinical Research Center for Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Moxibustion, tianjing, China
Objective: The aim of this study was to comprehensively evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture combined with language training in the treatment of aphasia in children with cerebral palsy(CP). Methods: We searched 8 electronic databases from their inceptions to July 1, 2024 for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture for aphasia in children with CP. The evaluation of methodological quality for RCTs incorporated in this study adhered to the guidelines provided by the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool (ROB2). The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation Approach (GRADE) was used to evaluate the certainty of evidence of each outcome. The heterogeneity of the included literature was tested using Review Manager 5.4 software, while publication bias was estimated using funnel plots and Egger's tests by STATA15.1. A trial sequential analysis (TSA) was performed to test the robustness of the conclusiveness of our results. Results: In this study, we encompassed a total of 56 randomised controlled trials encompassing 4,683 participants. The majority of these trials were characterized by either a high or uncertain risk of bias, predominantly due to the omission of blinding within their experimental setups. Meta-analysis showed that acupuncture combined with language training was significantly better than language training alone in improving the clinical efficiency (RR:1.25; 95%CI:1.21,1.29; P<0.00001). A subgroup analysis of the different types of acupuncture revealed that acupuncture, electroacupuncture, scalp acupuncture, and auricular point seed-pressing all showed a significant improvement in aphasia in children with CP. Acupuncture combined with language training could significantly improve the adaptive behaviour (
Keywords: Acupuncture, Language training, Cerebral Palsy, Aphasia, Meta-analysis, randomised controlled trials
Received: 26 Sep 2024; Accepted: 24 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Li, Chang, Shi and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jiang-Wei Shi, First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nankai District, 300193, Tianjin, China
Lan Zhao, First Teaching Hospital of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nankai District, 300193, Tianjin, China
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