A Study On Rehabilitation Assessment And Underlying Biochemical Mechanism Of Acupuncture On Vascular Dementia

Purpose: To assess the rehabilitation effects of acupuncture with or without medicine on vascular dementia (VD).To study the biochemical mechanism underlying VD by assaying the neurotransmitters of VD rats before and after acupuncture.Method: 210 VD patients were randomly divided into three goups.120 VD rats models were established and divided into four groups. All patients and rats were treated with acupuncture and / or medicine. Barthel index and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) were used to evaluate activities of daily living (ADL) and cognition of VD patients. Morris Water Maze was used to evaluate learning and memory behavior of VD rats. The neurotransmitters in rats brains were measured after treatment.Result: ADL score and Barthel index of VD patients were improved after treatment. The memory and learning behavior was also improved in VD rats after treatment. And the improvement of acupuncture-and-drug group was much better than the others, while acupuncture group was better than drug group. The contents of neurotransmitters in VD rats brains were decreased, compared with normal group, but they were all increased after treatment. Acupuncture-and-drug group was best, while acupuncture group was better than drug group.Conclusion: Combined treatment of acupuncture with medicine had certain effects on VD, which were better than those of acupuncture or medicine alone. The effect of treating with acupuncture alone was better than that of medicine alone. Acupuncture could improve the function of neurotransmitters in brain, where the effect could be reinforced together with medicine.