Acupressure improves sleep quality of psychogeriatric inpatients.

BACKGROUND: Acupressure, a noninvasive form of acupuncture, may be used as a low-cost and noninvasive means of improving sleep quality. Although it has been evaluated to improve self-reported sleep quality, it has not been assessed with regard to effectiveness in improving perceived and objective measures of sleep quality outcomes. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of acupressure in improving sleep quality of psychogeriatric inpatients. METHODS: Using a convenience sample, 60 psychogeriatric inpatients with affective disorders from southern Taiwan were recruited. They were assigned randomly to an experimental or control group. Although both groups received standard medical care, those in the experimental group received 9-minute acupressure treatment daily for 4 consecutive weeks. Acupressure was applied to three acupoints: shenmen, yangchuan, and neiguan. Outcomes were measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and actigraphy. Data were collected at baseline and after 4 weeks of intervention. RESULTS: Participants in the experimental group improved significantly in subjective sleep quality as measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and in objective sleep quality as measured by actigraphy (p < .001 for all) after 4 weeks of intervention. Although the control participants also had some improvement in sleep quality, those in the experimental group had significantly greater improvements (p < .05) in all domains of subjective and objective sleep quality than the control group. DISCUSSION: Acupressure may be an effective means of improving sleep quality of psychogeriatric inpatients.

Mental health implications of music: insight from neuroscientific and clinical studies.

Neuroscientific and clinical studies of music over the past two decades have substantially increased our understanding of its use as a means of therapy. The authors briefly review current literature related to music's effect on people with different mental illnesses, and examine several neurobiological theories that may explain its effectiveness or lack thereof in treating psychiatric disorders. Neuroscientific studies have shown music to be an agent capable of influencing complex neurobiological processes in the brain and suggest that it can potentially play an important role in treatment. Clinical studies provide some evidence that music therapy can be used as an alternative therapy in treating depression, autism, schizophrenia, and dementia, as well as problems of agitation, anxiety, sleeplessness, and substance misuse, though whether it can actually replace other modes of treatment remains undetermined. Future research should include translational studies involving both neuroscience and clinical medicine that investigate the long-term effects of music intervention and that lead to the development of new strategies for music therapy.