Publication Trends in Rehabilitative Effects of Acupuncture: A Visual Analysis of the Literature

OBJECTIVES: To conduct a comprehensive analysis of scientific outputs in 2011–2021 regarding the rehabilitative effects of acupuncture on diseases. METHODS: The study was conducted in the form of knowledge graph and data visualization, with data being drawn from the Web of Science Core Collection database. RESULTS: Articles and reviews were the dominant types; China, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine and Medicine ranked was the active country, institution, and journal, respectively, in terms of issued articles. Systematic reviews and the meta-analyses of stroke and pain were extensively carried out in the past decade, whose principal interventions were manual acupuncture, electroacupuncture, scalp acupuncture, and dry needling correspondingly at Baihui (DU20) and Zusanli (ST36). And most frequently utilized rehabilitation assessment criteria were the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Scale and the Barthel Index. More recently, motor function and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have captured researchers' attention, which might be the futuristic frontier. CONCLUSIONS: This article provided a relatively panoramic picture of the scientific outputs in acupuncture for disease rehabilitation, which may help readers embrace the heated topic and grasp the recent research focus on this field.