A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE TREATMENT OF VASCULAR DEMENTIA BY PUNCTURING BAIHUI (GV 20), SHUIGOU (GV 26) AND SHENMEN (HT 7)

摘要

Objective: To observe the relative specialty of the therapeutic effect of acupuncture of Baihui (GV 20), Shuigou (GV 26) and Shenmen (HT 7) in the treatment of vascular dementia (VD) patients. Methods: Fifty VD patients were randomly divided into routine treatment group (control group), Baihui (GV 20) group (GV 20 group), Shuigou (GV 26) group (GV 26 group), Shenmen (HT 7) group (HT7 group) and GV 20 + GV 26 + HT 7 group (joint treatment group), with 10 cases in each group. In control group, acupoints used were Jianyu (LI 15) , Quchi (LI 11), Waiguan (TE 5), etc. (which were also used in the other four groups) on the paralyzed side. The treatment was conducted once a day except weekends, 20 sessions all together. Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) test, Blessed Dementia Rating Scale (BDR) and Clinical Neurological Deficit Rating (CNDR) were used to assess the patients' intelligence state before and after acupuncture treatment. Results: After acupuncture treatment, the VD patients' intelligence in all the five groups was improved at different degrees. Additional acupuncture of each of GV 20, GV 26 and HT 7 had a remarkable effect in improving the VD patients' fluid intelligence, and could obviously promote their abilities of temporal orientation, spatial orientation and figure drawing; and additional joint acupuncture of the three acupoints could improve their cognitive and non-cognitive functions, such as reducing the severity of dementia, raising the temporal orientation, spatial orientation, calculation, short-term memory and figure drawing abilities, and improving their activities of daily living and personality. Besides, acupuncture of GV 20 could improve the abilities of calculation and short term memory, and correct the personality change of VD patients, while acupuncture of GV 26 could improve the abilities of naming and short-term memory. Conclusion; Acupuncture of GV 20, GV 26 and HT 7 all had a certain therapeutic effect in improving VD; the therapeutic effects of acupuncture of GV 20 and GV 26 were better than that of acupuncture of HT 7; and the efficacy of the three points used in combination was the best.