Acupuncture treatment helped get better sleep, improved
depression and stress in elderly people as recently reported in journal
Neuroscience Letter.
It is known that the sleep quality in elderly people is
quite poor due to aging process. Poor sleep in elderly population causes
tiredness, loss of interest of daily activity, stress and depression, and can
significantly impair the quality of their life. Poor sleep is believed to be
associated with many detrimental physiological and psychological changes such
as alterations in brain neurotransmitters which are important for maintaining a
healthy body and mood.
Recently doctors in Brazil conducted a clinical study to
assess the effect of acupuncture on sleep quality in elderly people.
Forty-eight elderly (aged 60-77) were randomly assigned into acupuncture group
and placebo group. In acupuncture group acupoints SP6, LI4, ST36, LIV3, PC6 and
EX-NH3 were stimulated for 25 min, twice a week for total 10 sessions. In
placebo group, needle sites were far away from true acupoints, stimulation is
superficial and no needle was inserted. Sleep quality, depression and stress
were evaluated by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), the Beck
Depression Inventory (BDI) and the perceived stress scale (PSS) before and
after treatment. It was found that acupuncture markedly improved the sleep
quality, depression and stress in all treated participants compared with
placebo treatment.
The study also investigated effect of acupuncture on
immunosenecence and brain derived neurotrophic factor. No difference was found
between acupuncture and placebo groups.
The authors suggest that in elderly population
acupuncture could be a very effective treatment for sleep problem, depression
and stress without side effect.
Reference:
Zuppa C et al.,
Acupuncture for sleep quality, BDNF levels and immunosenescence: A randomized
controlled study. Neuroscience Letters 587 (2015) 35–40. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25511549
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