The latest research from Germany suggests the relatively new alternative medicine treatment of laser acupuncture is effective for chronic headaches in children.

Published in the medical journal Pain, the study used a method based on the Traditional Chinese Medicine philosophy that living organisms produce electrical currents that flow through paths, or ‘meridians’, within the body. By stimulating these paths at various pressure points, or ‘acupoints’, the electrical currents change and influence a person’s health.

Using the principals of traditional acupuncture, ‘laser acupuncture’ utilises low-energy lasers to alter the current flow at certain acupoints. 43 children who suffered with either chronic migraine headaches or chronic tension headaches were given random treatments over one month.

The tests were conducted ‘double-blind’ which meant that neither the child or the researcher were aware whether the laser was set to a certain strength or set at all. Results were compared in three ways – the amount of days children suffered with headaches, pain severity using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the amount of time the child experienced headaches before and after the treatment.

Children who received laser acupuncture were found to have reduced days in which they suffered headaches, had less pain during the headache and less time suffering the headache compared to children who thought they were getting the treatment but were not.

“Laser acupuncture can provide a significant benefit for children with headache, with active laser treatment being clearly more effective than placebo laser treatment,” said the German researchers.