With the advent of an aging society, the incidence of stroke is increasing year by year [
1]. In recent years, due to the progress of science and technology and the continuous development of medicine, the survival rate and survival time of stroke patients have been greatly improved and prolonged, but the disability rate is still high [
2]. The loss of activities of living of patients after stroke is mostly caused by upper-limb dysfunction, especially hand dysfunction [
3]. Hand functional exercise is the premise of alleviating hand dysfunction, and the alleviation of hand spasm is the basis for timely and effective hand functional exercise. Hence, alleviating hand spasm after stroke has far-reaching significance in reducing disability rate and improving the daily activities of living of patients. At present, the main methods to relieve the increased muscle tension after stroke are drug intervention and non-drug therapy (such as physical factors and kinesiotherapy) [
4,
5]. Sometimes, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, massage, brace, orthosis and use of a rehabilitation robot are used as adjuvant therapy [
6,
7]. Each therapy has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Drug intervention mainly includes using central antispasmodic drugs and peripheral-nerve local-blocking antispasmodic drugs. Current clinical applications have achieved some positive results. The use of central antispasmodic drugs is relatively simple and convenient, but long-term use will likely lead to obvious drug resistance and related adverse reactions, such as muscle weakness, nausea, mental depression, etc. In clinical application, drug replacement and dosage adjustment should be often considered. Botulinum toxin A is the representative of peripheral-nerve local-blockade antispasmodics. However, botulinum toxin A can only be used as a component of a multidisciplinary combination to alleviate the increase of limb-muscle tension after stroke. Other therapies are often needed in clinical application. In addition, in view of the technical difficulties and high cost of the clinical implementation of botulinum toxin A, it has not been widely carried out in the clinic to alleviate the increase of limb-muscle tension after stroke [
8,
9]. Physical therapy is mainly divided into exercise therapy, manipulation therapy and physical factor therapy. Exercise therapy and manipulation therapy can inhibit and weaken spasticity-inducing factors in patients with post-stroke limb spasm, so that limb movement control and motor function can be significantly strengthened and improved. However, a longer intervening time should be guaranteed in the treatment of post-stroke limb spasticity, and the individual condition of the patients should be taken into account in clinical practice [
10,
11]. In order to reduce the adverse effects caused by excessive exercise, we should adjust the range, intensity, frequency, and course of training. Physical factor therapy includes paraffin therapy, hydrotherapy, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, biofeedback therapy, functional electrical stimulation and shock-wave therapy. Physical factor therapy has been widely used in the treatment of limb spasm after stroke, and has achieved certain effects, but its exact mechanism is still unclear, and there is a lack of evidence-based medical evidence for large-sample clinical research. In addition, the implementation of physical factor therapy has not yet been standardized or clinical guidelines set; the operation depends on personal preferences and experience, and the intensity of stimulation and dose in different clinical reports varies [
12‐
16]. Orthosis and rehabilitation robots, with their good sustainability and rhythm, can assist in alleviating hand spasm after stroke and reduce the workload of therapists to some extent, but their sensitivity and regulation ability are poor, and they are expensive. They also require space and related technical personnel, which is not conducive with their clinical promotion [
17,
18]. Although many positive results have been achieved in the study of traditional acupuncture and massage in the treatment of post-apoplectic limb spasm, it is often necessary to select multiple acupoints to achieve a curative effect. Also, the acupoints selected by each research group are different, which is not conducive with its clinical promotion [
19]. Moreover, the criteria, principles and operating essentials of massage manipulation need to be unified and standardized, and its mechanism needs urgent clarification. All these circumstances encourage us to seek more simple, convenient, effective and inexpensive forms of rehabilitation therapy.
At present, the existence of myofascial trigger points has been widely accepted [
20]. The myofascial trigger point is a common hand-spasm factor in stroke patients. In long-term rehabilitation clinical practice, the team found that physicians could touch a cord-shaped nodule as the most obvious sore point of the patient’s discomfort, i.e., the fascia point to be needled, by pressing between the first and second metacarpal bones on the dorsal of the patients with hand spasm after stroke from the far side to the proximal side with thumb pulp. Preliminary clinical observation of 16 patients with hand spasm after stroke treated by fascial-point acupuncture has been completed in our group. The results show that fascial-point acupuncture can effectively alleviate hand spasm immediately after stroke, but its cumulative effect, duration of spasm relief and long-term efficacy need further clinical research [
21]. Therefore, we suggest that this multi-site, prospective clinical trial be carried out to further evaluate the clinical efficacy of fascial-point acupuncture in relieving hand spasm after stroke.