The Effect of Acupressure on Post-operative Abdominal Distension of Colorectal Cancer Patients

Acupressure is a traditional Chinese therapy and it is used generally to relax and provide support for general health. A lot of studies have reported its’ effectiveness in reducing gastrointestinal symptoms and side effect in chemotherapy.The aim of this study was to determine the immediate effects of true vs. shame acupressure on postoperative abdominal distension in colorectal cancer patients.

The quasi-experimental study was enroll 20 cases, 10 patients were signed as controls with shame acupressure, white 10 patients underwent true acupressure at Zusanli point during 5 days after surgery. Acupressure procedure was repeated 15 times lasing 3 min with a rest period of 1 min for a total 20 min per session. The bowel movement, time to first passage flatus, first time to excretion, time to drink and food intake were recorded to determine the effeteness of acupressure. The bowel movement was measured using stethoscope at before and after each acupressure session immediately. A chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to compare true and shame groups. GEE was used to detect the improvement of bowel movement between 2 groups.

There is no statistical significant between true and shame groups in age, history of gastrointestinal disease and abdominal surgery, and use of analgesic or sedative drug. The mean frequency of bowel movement per 8 hour was increase from 6 to 13.5 in true group and from 0.9 to 11.5 in shame group. Patients with true acupressure had early time to take food than controls (p= .04); however, there is no significantly differences in the first time to excretion between 2 groups (p >.05). The GEE shown the true acupressure group had higher pattern of bowel movement at the 40, 48, and 56 hours after surgery than shame one (p<.05).The acupressure on Zusanli was a useful treatment to improve post-operative abdominal distension in CRC patients; however, further evaluation on large sample size is needed.