Acupuncturist has been using trigger points since 2000 years ago. And there are research done 50 years ago in regarding to the dry needling in China. So the new inclusion of dry needling into DC PT practice is totally market driven as acupuncture has been proven effective treating pain in the past 20 years in USA.
Even today comparing to the acupuncturist required thousands of hours needle training, there is no definition of how many hours for physical therapist is required in DC. In the DC health department website:”A physical therapist using dry needling must have documented proof of having sufficient education and training “, the PT board has yet provided a number of hours training which is responsible for the public safety. Now people might have questions:
1) Is 50 hours enough for your safety and pain management?
Fact is nationally for doctor to do medical acupuncture, they are required to have 300 hours training. Just having couple of weekends’ needle training is not enough.
2) Why letting PT do dry needling while acupuncturists already have been doing it?
First, thanks to the efficacy and popularity of acupuncture including trigger point acupuncture in recent decade. Second, democracy is majority and money win. We are one tenth of PT board and still treated as non-main stream medicine.
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