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Acupuncture Improves Anxiety in Parkinson Disease Patients
Acupuncture with clinical monitoring effectively eased anxiety in patients living with Parkinson disease, according to a study published online in JAMA Network Open.
“Anxiety is closely associated with the accelerated progression of Parkinson’s disease,” wrote corresponding author Li-xing Zhuang, PhD, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangdong, China, and coauthors. “Efficacy of acupuncture for anxiety has been reported. However, to date, there are no data on acupuncture’s effectiveness on anxiety for patients with Parkinson’s disease.”
The randomized, double-blind clinical trial included 64 patients with Parkinson disease and anxiety who completed 8 weeks of either real acupuncture or sham acupuncture at a hospital in China.
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At the end of treatment, both real and sham acupuncture significantly ameliorated anxiety, with no significant difference in Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) score improvement between treatment groups, according to the study. Nevertheless, 8 weeks after treatment ended, the real acupuncture group showed a significant 7.03-point greater improvement in HAM-A score compared with the sham acupuncture group.
“The clinical improvement in the anxiety of the participants in the real acupuncture group was better than the sham acupuncture group. It can be preliminarily concluded that although there is a certain placebo effect in the short term, acupuncture is clinically effective on anxiety in patients with Parkinson’s disease,” researchers wrote. “The placebo effect of acupuncture in the present study disappeared over time; its therapeutic effect was maintained long-term.”
Four mild adverse reactions, but no serious adverse events, occurred during the study.
“These findings suggest,” researchers wrote, “that acupuncture may improve overall motor functions and wellbeing of patients with Parkinson’s disease by ameliorating the anxiety.”
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