Acupuncture in the Ranks

“The expanded use of acupuncture on the battlefield is being met with enthusiasm from physicians and patients because it works,” says Dr. Niemtzow, Colonel (Ret), U.S. Air Force, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal, Medical Acupuncture.
The Wall Street Journal recently featured a story on Navy doctors utilizing acupuncture, in conjunction with healing music and light therapy, to treat soldiers with traumatic brain injuries in Afghanistan. Cmdr. Stuessi, a Navy physician, used acupuncture on 20 injured marines, and all but 2 reported improvements in reduced anxiety, decreased frequency of headaches and better sleep. Stuessi’s first patient with a brain injury couldn’t sleep more than 4 hours a night, even after the administration of the medical standard of care, including anxiolytics and sleeping pills. After his initial acupuncture treatment, however, he was able to sleep 10 hours.
The Defense Department’s latest clinical guidelines recommends acupuncture as supplementary therapy for PTSD, anxiety, sleeplessness and pain, and now, thanks to docs like Stuessi, it’s increasingly being used for brain injuries. Stuessi isn’t sure why acupuncture works for concussions or why it seems to speed up the recovery process, but he predicts, “that in a couple of years, it will be the standard of care.”