Electro-acupuncture for post-stroke cognitive impairment: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: A considerable number of stroke survivors suffered from cognitive impairment, and more than one third of stroke survivors are affected at 3 and 12 months after the stroke. Although the published systematic reviews suggest that acupuncture can help improve post-stroke cognitive dysfunction, the power of the results is low due to study limitations. Therefore, this review is necessary to analyze the effect of acupuncture on cognitive impairment after stroke and to provide evidence for cognitive impairment in stroke. METHODS: This study will be carried out in strict accordance with the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. According to the pre-established search strategy (PICOS framework), all the literature will be obtained from online databases including Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials in the Cochrane Library, Medline (via PubMed), EMBASE (via embase.com), CINAHL (via EBSCOhost), China National Knowledge Infrastructure database, WanFang Database, Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, and Sino-Med Database from inception until December 31, 2021 with no language limitations. Two reviewers will screen the records and include quality studies according to inclusion criteria independently. The data needed will be extracted independently by 2 authors according to a table of data extraction. Any inconsistencies in literature screening and data collection will be resolved to reach a consensus via discussion with a third author. Risk of bias for each study will be assessed using risk of bias tool. RevMan5.3 will be used to analyze the data. Heterogeneity will be identified and measured by Chi2. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analysis will be carried out. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation will be used to evaluate the evidence for each outcome. CONCLUSION: The results of this study will provide a theoretical basis for the clinical use of electro-acupuncture to treat cognitive dysfunction after stroke. UNIQUE INPLASY NUMBER: INPLASY202210038.

Effect of electroacupuncture on postoperative cognitive dysfunction for patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND: Electroacupuncture is increasingly used in rehabilitation for postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), but relevant evidence remains unclear for patients receiving total knee arthroplasty (TKA). METHODS: The databases research of PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) will be conducted from inception to December 31, 2020. The relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from data will be screened one by one. The remaining studies that meet the inclusion criteria will be extracted and analyzed using RevMan V.5.3 software. Paired 2 reviewers will assess quality of the included studies and publication bias by using the Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias tool, and Egger test and Begg test respectively. And grading of recommendations assessment, development and evaluation (GRADE) will be used to estimate the quality of evidence. RESULTS: In this study, we will analyze the effect of electroacupuncture on Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), interleukin 1ß (IL-1ß), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), S100-ß protein, and adverse events for patients with TKA. CONCLUSION: Our findings will provide evidence for the effectiveness of electroacupuncture on the treatment and prevention of POCD for TKA patients. REGISTRATION NUMBER: Available at: https://osf.io/azyt9 (DOI number: 10.17605/OSF.IO/AZYT9).