Acupressure

Acupressure stimulates acupuncture points by pressing on them, with a finger, a thumb or a device, and no needle. A 2011 review by Robinson and colleagues at London South Bank University describes it as pressure held for some time on specific points chosen by the theory of Chinese medicine. Because a person can be taught to do it on themselves, trials of acupressure often hand the treatment to the patient, as a wristband to wear or a routine to press at home. This page reports what those trials and the reviews of them found.

Fingers, wristbands and devices

Many of the trials below test PC06 (Neiguan) on the inner forearm. The WHO standard point locations of 2008 place it on the front of the forearm between the tendons of the palmaris longus and flexor carpi radialis, 2 B-cun above the crease of the wrist; a B-cun is a proportional unit, explained in Measuring in cun. Acupressure wristbands are worn to press on that point, and a 2015 trial in Umeå, Sweden, tested one brand, Sea-Band, against a sham. Devices that pass an electric current through the skin at the same point are a different technique, covered under Electroacupuncture. Ear acupressure, with seeds taped to points on the ear, is covered under Ear acupuncture.

AcuiQ records how each protocol was delivered as its modality, and pressure on points is filed as acupressure, separately from the points a study used; Reading a protocol explains the field.

Nausea: wristbands at PC06

A 2025 Cochrane review led by Anna Lee at the Chinese University of Hong Kong pooled 77 trials of PC06 stimulation to prevent nausea and vomiting after surgery, run between 1986 and 2022 with 9,847 participants. It grouped the techniques into invasive ones, such as needles, and non-invasive ones, such as acupressure wristbands. Against sham, non-invasive stimulation was associated with less nausea (risk ratio 0.67), less vomiting (0.58) and less need for rescue drugs (0.60), each on low-certainty evidence. Non-invasive stimulation added to antiemetic drugs probably reduced the need for rescue drugs (risk ratio 0.44, moderate certainty, from indirect comparisons). No trial reported a serious or lasting complication; 39 trials with 5,334 participants reported minor effects such as skin irritation, redness and swelling. The Umeå trial found no effect: 95 patients having brain surgery, all given the antiemetic ondansetron, had no less nausea or vomiting with a Sea-Band on one wrist than with a sham. Nausea after surgery reports the evidence on this question.

In chemotherapy, a UK trial by Molassiotis and colleagues randomised 500 patients to wristbands with antiemetic drugs, sham wristbands with antiemetic drugs, or the drugs alone. Nausea in the first cycle did not differ significantly between the three groups; it was lower, though not significantly, with either kind of band than with drugs alone. Nausea from chemotherapy reports the wider evidence. For nausea in early pregnancy, a 2015 Cochrane review of 41 trials with 5,449 women, of interventions from acupressure to ginger and antiemetic drugs, found the evidence for PC06 acupressure limited and a lack of high-quality evidence for any particular intervention.

Labour and period pain

A 2020 Cochrane review led by Caroline Smith included 28 trials with 3,960 women, 15 of them of acupressure. Against a sham, the review could not say whether acupressure reduced pain in labour, because the evidence from 6 trials with 472 women was of very low certainty, but it found that acupressure probably reduces the rate of caesarean section (risk ratio 0.44, 4 trials, 313 women, moderate certainty). No trial was at low risk of bias in every domain. Labour pain reports the evidence on this question, and Pregnancy and the forbidden points sets out which points sources caution against in pregnancy.

For period pain, a 2025 review by Yu and colleagues at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine pooled 20 of 23 trials of acupressure for primary dysmenorrhoea and found lower pain than with placebo acupressure (mean difference 1.58), while rating the evidence low in quality.

Self-administered acupressure

AcuiQ’s pages for postoperative nausea, labour pain, dysmenorrhoea, fatigue and insomnia list the protocols individual studies prescribed, each with its citation.

Shiatsu and tuina

Shiatsu developed in Japan. The Robinson review describes it as using pressure from the fingers, thumbs, elbows, knees and feet along with stretches, over the whole body, and incorporating acupressure; its practitioners are trained in more than 150 pressure points, and diagnose mainly by touch. The review found 9 studies of shiatsu, including only one randomised trial, and judged the evidence insufficient in quantity and quality; among the 71 acupressure studies it found, the evidence was strongest for pain, particularly period pain, low back pain and labour, and for nausea and vomiting after surgery.

Tuina is a Chinese manual therapy. A 2026 network meta-analysis of treatments for cervical vertigo classes it with Chinese osteopathic manipulation as manual therapy, apart from acupoint stimulation. A 2026 review by Huang and colleagues pooled 21 trials of tuina for chronic low back pain with 1,612 participants and found greater pain reduction than with control treatments, on low-certainty evidence.

What the sources cannot tell you

A sham band still presses on the wrist, and in the Molassiotis trial patients with sham bands did no worse than those with real ones, so a trial that finds no difference between them cannot tell whether the band did nothing or the sham did something too; Sham acupuncture sets out the problem. The two self-administered trials in the table compared acupressure with usual care or with education, not with a sham. And the treatment itself varies: Cheng and colleagues found training, point selection, duration, dose and timing all differing between studies. The needling safety review left acupressure out, so its adverse event rates do not apply here.