Department of Anesthesiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China (mainland).
Department of Anesthesiology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China (mainland).
Med Sci Monit. 2023 Feb 10;29:e938920. doi: 10.12659/MSM.938920.
Several studies have reported that sleep quality often decreases in patients after surgery, especially in elderly patients, which seriously affects postoperative prognosis and outcomes, inducing diseases such as postoperative delirium, long-term chronic pain, and potentially fatal cardiovascular events. With the popularization of comfortable medicine, medical workers pay more attention to the postoperative sleep quality of patients. The causes underlying the decrease in postoperative sleep quality may include postoperative pain, the severity of surgical trauma and stress, perioperative anxiety and depression, and postoperative complications. Patients with insomnia often use acupoint therapies as a safe and effective alternative to drugs. Acupoint therapies are among the oldest medical therapies of Traditional Chinese Medicine and are gradually gaining recognition among medical workers worldwide. Various types of acupoint stimulation methods such as transcutaneous electrical acupoint simulation (TEAS), acupressure, acupuncture, and electroacupuncture can change the brain's local electrical activity, inhibit the central nervous system, and achieve deep sedation through stimulating the related acupoints, which provides a novel idea and basis for improvement in factors affecting postoperative sleep quality. This review explores the mechanism of acupoint therapies from several aspects of affecting the sleep quality of patients after surgery and its clinical results. We found that acupoint therapies effectively improve sleep quality and alleviate the postoperative complications of patients, and we emphasize the importance of acupoint therapies to guide future research and clinical practice. Large-scale, multicenter studies are needed to determine the optimal duration, frequency, and timing of acupoint stimulation for improving postoperative sleep quality.
已有多项研究报告指出，手术患者的睡眠质量往往会下降，尤其是老年患者，这会严重影响术后预后和结局，导致术后谵妄、长期慢性疼痛以及潜在致命的心血管事件等疾病。随着舒适医学的普及，医务人员更加关注患者术后的睡眠质量。导致术后睡眠质量下降的原因可能包括术后疼痛、手术创伤和应激的严重程度、围手术期焦虑和抑郁以及术后并发症。失眠患者通常将穴位疗法作为药物治疗的安全有效替代方法。穴位疗法是中医最古老的医疗疗法之一，在全球范围内逐渐得到医务人员的认可。各种类型的穴位刺激方法，如经皮穴位电刺激（TEAS）、穴位按压、针灸和电针等，通过刺激相关穴位，可以改变大脑的局部电活动，抑制中枢神经系统，达到深度镇静，为改善影响术后睡眠质量的因素提供了新的思路和依据。本综述从影响术后患者睡眠质量的几个方面探讨了穴位疗法的作用机制及其临床效果。我们发现，穴位疗法能有效改善睡眠质量，减轻患者的术后并发症，并强调穴位疗法对指导未来研究和临床实践的重要性。需要开展大规模、多中心研究，以确定改善术后睡眠质量的穴位刺激的最佳持续时间、频率和时机。
