Liu 2004.

Methods	RCT
Participants	1 centre in China 82 participants with cerebral infarction or haemorrhage and CT/MRI‐documented stroke: 49 men, 33 women Age 40 to 80 years Infarct 72, haemorrhage 10 Enrolment within 6 months of stroke onset
Interventions	Rx: scalp acupuncture + sublingual needling (n = 44) C: scalp acupuncture + control needling (n = 38)
Outcomes	Recovery of function (swallowing food and water, movement of the tongue, disappearance of dyslalia and hoarseness)
Notes	Exclusion: severe arrhythmia, coma, asthma, dilating myocardiopathy
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Method of randomisation unclear
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Unclear
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Blinding unclear
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Blinding unclear
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Blinding unclear
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Unclear
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Unclear aim of study ‐ only 1 outcome reported
Other bias	Unclear risk	Unclear