Klaus Linde

..But the responsible authorities changed this process. In the following, the review board comments both on this process and on the products...

..The Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration, a group of trialists, statisticians and other researchers, was established to synthesize patient-level data from several recently published large, high-quality trials...

..In the Prevent Falls (PreFalls) trial we aim to investigate the effectiveness of a pre-tested multi-modal intervention compared to usual care in this setting...

..Acupuncture is widely used to prevent migraine attacks, but the available evidence of its benefit is scarce...

..Extracts of Hypericum perforatum (St John's wort) are widely used to treat depression. Evidence for its efficacy has been criticised on methodological grounds...

..The quality of reporting was insufficient in the majority of publications. The available studies show that hypericum extract are well tolerated and seem to be effective in routine treatment of mild to moderate depressive disorders...

..Details of the three programmes will be presented in the following chapters...

..This analysis shows that, at least in the three areas examined, systematic reviews often differ considerably. Readers should be aware that apparently minor decisions in the review process can have major impact...

..We asked acupuncture therapists to provide original patient information leaflets in order to study how interventions were described in more detail...

..To investigate characteristics and outcomes of patients undergoing acupuncture treatment for osteoarthritic pain under conditions of routine care in the framework of statutory health insurance in Germany...

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..Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pretested form and summarized descriptively...

..Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pre-tested form and summarized descriptively...

..Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pretested form and summarized descriptively...

..To investigate the methodological quality of randomized controlled trials in three areas of complementary medicine...

..We aimed to describe the approaches and characteristics of systematic reviews on three major complementary therapies and to assess their methodological quality...

..03 (1.26-3.26) and 2.35 (1.68-3.30), respectively. Results from the 6-month follow-up were similar. In conclusion, in our trials a significant association was shown between better improvement and higher outcome expectations...

..Descriptions of the interventions used in acupuncture studies are often incomplete. The aim of this paper is to describe participating trial physicians and interventions in a randomised trial of acupuncture for low back pain...

..Randomized trials performed in parallel to this study confirm the relevant overall effect, however, the effect may largely be due to potent unspecific needling and placebo effects...

..CONCLUSIONS: In general, trial physicians complied well with the predefined interventions. A relevant minority of participating trial physicians stated that they would have treated patients differently outside the trial...

..This paper aims to describe the characteristics of physicians and interventions of a large, multicenter randomized trial of acupuncture for migraine (ART Migraine) in order to enable acupuncturists to assess the study interventions...

..To compare patient characteristics and outcomes between a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and an observational study (OS) of acupuncture treatment in patients with migraine...

..We aimed to investigate (1) to which extent headache diary variables correlate among each other; (2) to which extent they correlate with generic measures of quality of life and disability; (3) and whether correlations vary over time...

..To investigate the suitability of measurements of mercury (Hg) concentration as a means of identifying patients with health complaints attributed to dental amalgam...

..trial registration number: isrctn9737659...

..To investigate patient characteristics and outcomes after undergoing acupuncture treatment for chronic low back pain (cLBP) in Germany and to analyze chronification, pain grading, and depression as predictors for treatment outcomes...

..Still, they suggest that acupuncture might be an effective and safe treatment option for patients unwilling or unable to use drug prophylaxis...

..The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was euro10,526 (euros) per quality-adjusted life year. Acupuncture plus routine care was associated with marked clinical improvements in these patients and was relatively cost-effective...

..This shift towards more patient engagement by health professionals and towards more desire by patients for participation may be partly based on socio-political factors...

..We aim to systematically review and compare the available evidence for the effectiveness of pharmacological, psychological, and combined treatments for patients with depressive disorders in primary care...

..CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicate that treatment in the hospital for traditional Chinese medicine in Kotzting is associated with lasting improvements in the majority of patients...

..The partially randomized patient preference design is recommended for use in future trials of acupuncture for gastroscopy. Such trials should be performed in an outpatient setting...

..To investigate which patients receive acupuncture in the framework of statutory health insurance in Germany, how treatment was carried out, and what results were achieved...

..Findings of diagnostic studies using standardized psychiatric interviews as a gold standard suggest that family physicians (FPs) both under- and over-diagnose depression...

..We report on the study design and protocol of a randomised controlled trial (Acupuncture in Seasonal Allergic Rhinitis, ACUSAR) that investigates the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR)...

..The assessment of the tongue is a crucial diagnostic tool of traditional Chinese medicine. In a series of studies we aimed to investigate to what extent independent raters agree in the description of morphological tongue characteristics...

..Only one trial included in the 1996 version is still part of the 2008 version. Despite the large number of available trials and improvements in review methodology the current evidence is more difficult to interpret than in 1996...

..We re-analyzed the data from this review to investigate whether effects associated with sham acupuncture differed from those of other 'physical placebos'...

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..Objective: to assess the use of, knowledge about, and the demand for information concerning complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in cancer patients...

..Acupuncture is widely used by patients with low back pain, although its effectiveness is unclear. We investigated the efficacy of acupuncture compared with minimal acupuncture and with no acupuncture in patients with chronic low back pain...

..John's wort products. If the risk of interactions is adequately taken into account, high quality Hypericum extracts are an effective and safe tool in the hand of qualified health profession-als in primary care...

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..CONCLUSION: In this small pilot study a significant difference between treatment at P6 and a close sham point could not be detected. However, it cannot be ruled out that an existing difference was missed due to the small sample size...

..To investigate to which extent physicians participating in specialization and continuing medical education courses read clinical research articles and how relevant they deem this for their practical work...

..These longer term effects were more pronounced for physicians offering additional complementary methods in their practice. Improvement after acupuncture and patient satisfaction were positively correlated...

..To investigate whether acupuncture is superior to placebo and equivalent to sumatriptan for the early treatment of an acute migraine attack...

..Available data were subordinately analysed in order to compare both studies...

..The results indicated that we cannot claim global representativeness for the sample-based findings, but there is no reason to assume a "positive" selection...

..We investigated the efficacy of acupuncture compared with minimal acupuncture and with no acupuncture in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee...

..To determine the diagnostic accuracy and diagnostic patterns of clinical symptoms in patients suspected to suffer from obstructive airway diseases (OADs) within different health care sectors...

..We aimed to investigate whether the Prognos device might be a useful tool in the diagnosis of disorders suspected to be due to dental amalgam fillings...

..The results of this pilot study suggest that EPS-EPO VIIa might be effective in reducing chemotherapy-induced leukopenia. The efficacy and safety should be investigated in further studies...

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..There is very little evidence on the effectiveness of herbalism as practiced by specialist herbalists who combine herbs and use unconventional diagnosis...

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..To investigate the safety and efficacy of 2 extracts of echinacea for preventing upper respiratory tract infections...

..In particular, we were interested in which aspects the answers of doctors with an overall negative attitude towards EBM differed from those with a positive attitude...

..We aimed to investigate whether a single strain-counterstrain intervention is more effective than a sham intervention in improving restricted cervical range of motion in patients with neck pain...

..2 Mio were introduced in Germany from 2002 to February 2012. We aim to provide an overview of publications reporting original data and systematic reviews from German academic family medicine published between 2000 and 2010...

..We, therefore, performed an experiment to investigate whether a verbal suggestion (VS) integrated in a cardiologic procedure has an impact on diameters of coronary arteries...

..The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact on practice visits, referrals and periods of disability in German general practices and to identify predictors of health care utilisation...

..This raises the question whether (sham) acupuncture is associated with particularly potent nonspecific effects. We aimed to investigate the size of nonspecific effects associated with acupuncture interventions...

..The evidence base for multifactorial lifestyle interventions is weak. Effects on surrogate measures seem minor, but there may be clinically relevant effects on major clinical endpoints...

..Summarizing all the different sham interventions as "placebo" controls seems misleading and scientifically unacceptable...

..63, -0.52), and CABG as indication for admission (1.68; 95% CI: 0.36, 3.01). The identification of predictors of HRQoL in the present study may aid in the further development and evaluation of cardiac rehabilitation programmes...

..OUTLOOK: The results of these two studies (available in 2004) will provide health care providers and policy makers with the information needed to make scientifically sound assessments of acupuncture therapy...

..This model would better explain the contradictory results reported in placebo research. Further implications for research and health care decision making are discussed...

..In the meantime two further meta-analyses have been published. In the present mini-review, these latest meta-analyses are evaluated and discussed...

..Knee osteoarthritis is a major cause of pain and functional limitation...

..Homeopathy deserves an open-minded opportunity to demonstrate its value by using evidence-based principles, but it should not be substituted for proven therapies...

..As acupuncture has been shown to exhibit considerable autonomic effects, we tested whether the clinical effects of acupuncture in migraine prophylaxis are mediated by changes of the autonomic regulation...