Acupuncture Clinical Study Of Senile Dementia Of Behavioral And Psychological Symptoms

Objective : To explore the influence of the acupuncture therapy in treating behavioral and psychological symptoms in AD , and provide a clinic evidence of treating BPSD by acupuncture.Method: This is a multivariate one factor repeat measure design , in brief, it is a self-compare study. Thirty AD patients with BPSD were included. During 2 months observation period, patients received acupuncture therapy ltime/day, and 5times/week. At baseline, 1 month during the treatment , and theended time, the Behavioral Pathology in Alzheimer' s Disease RatingScale, (BEHAVE-AD); Mini-Mental State-Examination MMSE); Activity of Daily Living Scale (ADL) ; and Symptoms According to Chinese Medicine Differentiation Rating Scale, were used by clinic doctors to evaluate the curative effect. The results are analyzed by SPSS11.5, exact statistic is used for the significant test.Results : The scores of BEHAVE-AD decrease from baseline to the end of study, p<0. 001. There were two different tendencies in 7 area of BEHAVE-AD, among these 7 kinds of symptoms :paranoia and delusion, activity disturbance, affective disturbance, anxieties phobias scores decreased after 2 month acupuncture treatment , P<0. 01. There is no significant change in hallucinations, aggressive, diurnal rhythm disturbance , P>0. 05. At the same time the scores improved in MMSE after one month acupuncture treatment, P<0. 01. And there is no significant drop in ADL scores, P>0. 05.Conclusions: The results demonstrate that the acupuncture are effective in treating BPSD of AD, especially for the paranoia and delusion, activity disturbance, affective disturbance, anxieties phobias. It also showed acupuncture improve recognize function, and alleviate some other non-cognitionfunction symptoms. But it didn't show evidence of daily functions improvement.