[Clinical investigation on electroacupuncture treatment of vascular dementia with "Xiusanzhen"].

OBJECTIVE

To observe the effect of electroacupuncture (EA) in the treatment of vascular dementia (VD) so as to explore an effective therapy for it.

METHODS

Sixty cases of VD were randomly divided into acupuncture group and medication (Duxil, 40 mg/time, 2 times/d for 10 weeks) group, with 30 cases in each group. "Xiusanzhen" means that two acupuncture needles were penetrated subcutaneously from bilateral Yingxiang (LI 20) to Shangyingxiang (EX-HN 8) respectively, and the 3rd needle was penetrated from the midpoint between two Yangbai (GB 14) through Yintang (EX-HN 3) to the nasal root, followed by applying EA stimulation to the acupoints. Hasegawa's Dementia Scale (HDS), Mini-mental state examination (MMSE), and Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ) were used for assessment of the VD patient's state before and after the treatment.

RESULTS

After the treatment, the total effective rates of acupuncture and medication groups were 80.00% and 73.33% respectively. The effective rate of acupuncture group was significantly superior to that of medication group (P<0.05). Before treatment, scores of HDS, MMSE and FAQ in both groups had no significant differences (P>0.05); after the treatment, the scores of HDS and MMSE increased significantly, and that of FAQ decreased remarkably in both groups (P<0.01), and the difference of scores (or absolute value of FAQ) between post-treatment and pre-treatment in EA group was obviously higher than that in medication group (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION

Acupuncture of "Xiusanzhen" is effective in the treatment of VD patients.