ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: More than 70% of patients with depression who see their doctors experience insomnia. Insomnia treatment is a very important link for depression treatment. Furthermore, antidepression treatment is also important for depression insomnia. In acupuncture, LU-7 (Lie Que) and KID-6 (Zhao Hai), which are two of the eight confluence points in meridian theory, are used as main points. An embedded needle technique is used, alternately, at two groups of points to consolidate the treatment effect. These two groups of points are BL-15 (Xin Shu) with BL-23 (Shen Shu) and BL-19 (Dan Shu) with N-HN-54 (An Mian). The effectiveness of these optimized acupuncture formulas is well proven in the practice by our senior acupuncturists in Guangdong Provincial Hospital of TCM. This study has been designed to examine whether this set of optimized clinical formulas is able to increase the clinical efficacy of depression insomnia treatment. METHODS/DESIGN: In this randomized controlled multicenter trial, all the eligible participants are diagnosed with depression insomnia. All participants are randomly assigned to one of two groups in a ratio of 1:1 and receive either conventional acupuncture treatment or optimized acupuncture treatment. Patients are evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI)and the Hamilton rating scale(HAMD) for depression. The use of antidepression and hypnotics drugs is also considered. Results are obtained at the start of treatment, 1 and 2 months after treatment has begun, and at the end of treatment. The entire duration of the study will be approximately 36 months. DISCUSSION: A high quality of trial methodologies is utilized in the study, and the results may provide better evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for depression insomnia. The optimized acupuncture formula has potential benefits in increasing the efficacy of treating depression insomnia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered in Chinese Clinical Trial Register (ChiCR-TRC-00000481) on 12 August 2009.
Subject(s)
Acupuncture Therapy , Clinical Protocols , Depression/therapy , Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders/therapy , Acupuncture Therapy/adverse effects , Adolescent , Adult , Data Interpretation, Statistical , Double-Blind Method , Humans , Middle Aged , Outcome Assessment, Health Care , Prospective StudiesABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To systematically evaluate the curative effect of acupuncture on post-stroke depression (PSD). METHODS: The internet was used to retrieve the Wanfang Medical Data System, Chinese Periodical Net, the Weipu Information Resources System, PubMed and the Cochrane Library Database. Relevant articles, up to September 2010, were manually retrieved. These papers included studies that had performed random and semi-random control trials for the use of acupuncture to treat PSD. Fifteen random control tests involving 1096 patients were included in this study and individual cases, interventional measures and curative effects were extracted from this research. Grade methodological quality evaluation and meta-analysis were performed on these studies. RESULTS: Comparison between the acupuncture group and the Western medicine group for the curative rate on PSD revealed an OR of 1.48, 95% CI = [1.11 1.97] and P = 0.008. Comparison of obviously effective rate shows that OR = 1.39, 95% CI = [1.08 1.80] and P = 0.01. Comparison of effective rate shows that OR = 0.83, 95% CI = [0.631.09] and P = 0.18. CONCLUSION: Comparison between the acupuncture group and Western medicine group in treating PSD revealed that there is a statistical difference in curative rate and remarkably effective rate, but no difference in effective rate.