Acupuncture for Alzheimer's Disease: a Systematic Review

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in older people and accounts for 60-80% of cases. Patients often use complementary medicine (CM) hoping that such treatments might produce improvements in quality of life and delay cognitive decline.One survey reported that 55% of responders had tried at least one form of CM for improving memory and 20% had tried three or more such therapies. Acupuncture is one of the most popular types of CM. It is often used as a treatment for dementia and is claimed to be effective in improving intelligence. From International Journal of Clinical Practice

Aims: The objective of this review is to assess the clinical evidence for or against acupuncture as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods: We searched the literature using 17 databases from their inception to August 2008, without language restrictions. We included all randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of needle acupuncture to treat human patients suffering from AD. Methodological quality was assessed using the Jadad score.

Results: Three RCTs met all inclusion criteria. Two RCTs assessed the effectiveness of acupuncture on cognitive function compared with drug therapy. Their results suggested no significant effect in favour of acupuncture [ n = 72]. Two RCTs tested acupuncture for activities of daily living (ADL). One RCT reported favourable effects of drug therapy compared with acupuncture for ADL, while the other failed to so. The meta-analysis of these data showed significant effects of drug therapy compared with acupuncture .

Conclusion: Even though the number of studies is small, the existing evidence does not demonstrate the effectiveness of acupuncture for AD.

-“Acupuncture for Alzheimer's Disease: a Systematic Review”, M. S. Lee; B.-C. Shin; E. Ernst, Published: 06/17/2009, summarized at http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703662 retrieved 6/24/09.

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