Acupuncture for Post COVID-19 Condition (Long COVID) Neuropsychiatric Symptoms

This is a pragmatic, randomized, double-blinded clinical trial on acupuncture for treating neuropsychiatric symptoms in long Covid patients. A total of 160 participants will be diagnosed by a registered Chinese medicine practitioner and randomly assigned to the acupuncture and the control group with a 1:1 ratio. The acupuncture group will receive 24 sessions of interventions during a 12-week treatment duration (2 sessions per week) and will be followed up at week 18. The control group will only receive conventional therapy.

Inclusion criteria

• meet the clinical diagnosis of Long COVID by the World Health Organization (WHO), with no neuropsychiatric symptoms 1 year before infection with Covid-19, and continue to have at least one neuropsychiatric symptom for 2 months after SARS-CoV-2 turned negative 3 months above;
• aged 12 to 80 years;
• willing and able to consent, and complete all assessment and study procedures

Exclusion criteria

• patients with a history of chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms;
• cardiovascular diseases pre-existing to the Covid-19 episode such as arrhythmia, heart failure, myocardial infarction, and patients with cardiac pacemakers;
• documented pre-existing history of psychiatric illness, including substance abuse;
• suicidal tendencies (attempted suicide in the 12 months before the study);
• any chronic or remote neurological disorder (i.e. stroke, head trauma, epilepsy, tumor);
• those who participated in other clinical trials within one month;
• pregnant or lactating female patients;
• have surgery within two months before the study or will have a scheduled surgery during the study;
• acute brain injury or acute encephalopathy from another etiology than Covid-19 (e.g., sepsis, liver or renal failure, alcohol or drug withdrawal, drug toxicity);
• open-heart cardiac surgery or cardiac arrest during the last 6 months;
• patients who received acupuncture treatment 1 month before the start of the study;
• patients who were unable to complete the assessment during screening due to severe mental, cognitive, or emotional impairment