Research: YU and colleagues,

Listed in Issue 130

Abstract

YU and colleagues, Gerontological Department, the First Hospital Affiliated to Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin 300193, China, have studied the effects of acupuncture on a type of dementia.

Background

Recent studies have suggested that acupuncture can ameliorate some symptoms commonly associated with vascular dementia. The aim of this study was to observe the clinical therapeutic effects of ‘yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan’ acupuncture method on vascular dementia.

Methodology

60 inpatients with vascular dementia were randomly assigned to the treatment group or control group. Both groups received routine treatment including medication and traditional acupuncture treatment. In addition, the treatment group was given the treatment of ‘yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan’ acupuncture (supplementing vital force-matter and regulating blood, supporting the root and fostering the source), which included the following 5 acupoints: tanzhong (CV17), zhongwan (CV12), qihai (CV6), zusanli (ST36) and xuehai (SP10). The treatment was performed once daily for 6 weeks. The mini-mental status examination, the revised Hasegawa’s dementia scale and activities of daily living exam were carried out before and after the experiment.

Results

All three scores were significantly improved in both groups (p<0.001). But the overall scores of mini-mental status examination and the revised Hasegawa’s dementia scale for the subjects in the treatment group were notably higher than in controls (p<0.05). Patients in the treatment group showed remarkable improvement in memory, orientation, calculation and self-managing ability in daily living after treatment. The total effective rate was 80.0% in the treatment group versus 46.7% in the control group (p<0.05).

Conclusion

These results suggest that ‘yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan’ acupuncture method had significant therapeutic effects on the key clinical symptoms of vascular dementia.

References

Yu J, Zhang X, Liu C, Meng Y, Han J. Effect of acupuncture treatment on vascular dementia. Neurological Research 28 (1): 97-103, Jan 2006.

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