Effect of acupuncture treatment on vascular dementia

Objective: Recent studies have suggested that acupuncture can ameliorate some symptoms commonly associated with vascular dementia (VaD). The study was carried out to observe the clinical therapeutic effects for VaD of 'yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan' acupuncture method (supplementing vital force-matter and regulating blood, supporting the root and fostering the source). Methods: Sixty inpatients with VaD were randomly assigned to the treat group (TG) or control group (CG). Both the TG and the CG received routine treatment as other inpatients with VaD, including medication and traditional acupuncture treatment. After that, the TG was given the treatment of 'yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan' acupuncture, which included five body acupoints, namely, 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 (MMSE), the revised Hasegawa's dementia scale (HDS-R) and activities of daily living (ADL) exam were carried out before and after the experiment, to evaluate therapeutic effects of the acupuncture method. Results: The MMSE, HDS-R and ADL scores were significantly improved in the TG and CG (p < 0.001). But the overall scores of MMSE and HDS-R for the subjects in the TG were notably higher than those in the CG (p < 0.05). Patients in the TG 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 TG versus 46.7% in the CG, where significant difference between the two groups exhibited (p < 0.05). Conclusions: These results suggested that 'yi qi tiao xue, fu ben pei yuan' acupuncture method had significant therapeutic effects and well tolerated in ameliorate the key clinical symptoms of VaD.