Clinical Study Of Acupuncture Treating Chronic Insomnia

1. Research background and Objective1.1 Research backgroundHuman spends one third of lifetime in sleep, so sleep is a very important course which is indispensable to human survival, it not only can maintain individual survival, but also can promote growth and development, facilitate learning, shape memory, relieve intense emotion and so on. Only under the condition of sleep, can neurons and associated issues get recess demanded by their reconstruction and regeneration. Sleep is an indispensable ingredient to health, and it is necessary to healthy life. On the contrary, insomnia is a formidable enemy to health, and it can cause many damages to body, very easily induce hypertension, diabetes, Alzbeimer' s disease,depressive disorder etc. Therefore, much more attention is paid to sleep research increasingly, especially insomnia. The research emphasis is to promote patients in the state of sleep naturally without adverse effect and dependency, but not to affect normal architecture of sleep. At present, acupuncture is one of research hotspots.1.2 Research ObjectiveThe present study performed acupuncture therapy to insomnia patients by syndrome differentiation of acupoint selection and adopting different time of therapy, and used Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and polysomongraphy to trace and analyze sleep parameters of each group before and after treatment, then made comparison both in group and among groups, in order to evaluate time efficiency, to screen the best therapeutic regimen and to preliminarily discuss its therapeutic mechanism. The study will establish a good foundation for exploring therapeutic method of insomnia without toxic or adverse effect, for developing traditional Chinese medicine and for researching the mechanism of acupuncture.2. Methods2.1 Time efficiency study of acupuncture treating insomniaThe experiment was divided into two groups.The first group experiment, according to the internationally recognized insomnia diagnostic criteria selected cases, and was divided into morning therapeutic group, PM. (before retiring therapy)therapeutic group, and twice-a-day (AM. and PM.) therapeutic group, and according to internationally recognized insomnia therapeutic effect judging standard evaluated therapeutic effect and compared the difference of therapeutic effect among three therapeutic methods stated above.The second group experiment, selected the best therapeutic method according to the experiment results of the first group, and was divided into every-day therapeutic group and every-other-day therapeutic group, comparing the difference of therapeutic effect between two groups with the same criteria of case selection and therapeutic effect judgment as the first group experiment.2.2 Research on the mechanism of acupuncture treating insomnia Among the second group selected cases (every-day therapeutic group and every-other-day therapeutic group), before treatment polysomnograph was performed in each case, (adapting suffers to sleep room before test), after 4 treatment courses, polysomnograph of each patient was tested, then we analyzed and compared the change and difference of sleep architecture between every-day therapeutic group and every-other-day therapeutic group.3. statistic methodsThe change of sleep parameters was planned to use Student's t-test of self-controlled study before and after treatment; the change of accumulative symptom scores was planned to use Student's t-test of self-controlled study before and after treatment; the pairwise comparison of the mean of three groups was planned to use q-test of single factor analysis of variance.4. Result4.1 Morning therapeutic group, PM. therapeutic group and twice-a-day therapeutic group, group comparison and pairwise comparison of every integral of PSQI among three groups, only the hypnagogic time had statistical difference(P＜0.05) after treatment.4.2 After treatment, general sleep quality of three groups and every other index had no statistical difference.4.3 Comparison before and after treatment in each group had significant statistical difference (P＜0.05).4.4 After treatment, group comparison of PSQI every integral in every-day therapeutic group and every-other-day therapeutic group had significant statistical difference (P＜0.05).4.5 Comparing PSQI every integral before and after treatment, every-day therapeutic group had significant statistical difference (P＜0.05); every-other-day therapeutic group had no significant statistical difference (P＞0.05). 4.6 After treatment, group comparison of sleep architecture in every-day therapeutic group and every-other-day therapeutic group, every stage of NREM had significant statistical difference (P＜0.05); but the state of REM had no significant statistical difference (P＞0.05).4.7 Comparing sleep architecture before and after respective treatment, two groups both had significant statistical difference (P＜0.05).5. Conclusion5.1 PM. therapy probably has good help to those who feel difficult to go to sleep.5.2 Either morning therapy, PM. therapy or both morning and PM. therapy can improve sleep quality, and twice-a-day group has no significant difference with once-a-day group, demonstrating that it is no necessity to do therapy twice a day.5.3 In the early stages of therapy, everyday therapy is necessary.5.4 Acupuncture can change sleep architecture, mainly through shortening the light sleep and prolonging the deep sleep, which is the dominant mechanism to improve sleep quality.5.5 So long as time of therapy is enough, every-other-day therapy is effective and can improve sleep quality as well as everyday therapy.