Efficacy of Naprapathy in Brachial Plexus Injury: Protocol for a Randomized Clinical Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinical rehabilitation for brachial plexus injury is difficult in terms of chronic pain and dysfunction. Physiotherapy is considered a routine intervention for rehabilitation. Common physical therapy may require a variety of instruments. One approach that does not need instruments, but belongs to the field of complementary and alternative medicine, is naprapathy. Naprapathy, also called Tuina in China, has been applied in rehabilitation after brachial plexus injury for a long time. Naprapathy can relieve chronic neuropathic pain, promote local blood circulation, and improve body edema. Naprapathy can passively help improve motor functions in patients with peripheral nerve injury. However, the efficacy of naprapathy in improving rehabilitation after brachial plexus injury is unclear. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the additional value of naprapathy when combined with conventional physical therapy for the treatment of brachial plexus injury. METHODS: This will be a single-center randomized controlled trial. A total of 116 eligible patients with brachial plexus injury will be randomly divided into an experimental group (naprapathy plus physical therapy group) or a control group (physical therapy group). The participants will be followed up for 4 weeks of treatment. Observation outcomes will include the visual analog scale score, upper limb index, electromyography findings, and adverse reactions, among others. The measuring points for outcomes will be the baseline and the completion of treatment. In addition, a quality control group independent from the research team will be set up to control the quality of the trial. Finally, the data will be analyzed using SPSS software (version 21.0; IBM Corp). RESULTS: The study is recruiting participants. The first participant was enrolled in September 2021. As of January 2023, a total of 100 participants have been enrolled. The trial is expected to be completed by September 2023. The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Review Committee of Yue Yang Hospital affiliated with the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (2021-012). CONCLUSIONS: One limitation of this trial is that we will be unable to achieve strict double-blinding because of the features of naprapathy. The trial aims to contribute reliable evidence for decision-making in naprapathy for treating brachial plexus injury. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2100043515; http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=122154. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/46054.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.043 | 0.038 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.007 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.014 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.077 | 0.011 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".