Acupuncture Therapy

Abstract

Acupuncture therapy has been known as a practice related to oriental medicine, and recently has been detected as a potential therapeutic tool for which there is good scientific evidence. Depression and anxiety are usually classified as mental illnesses and it is more useful to think of them as disturbances in brain health, which is directly related to the physical makeup and brain mechanisms and emotional and relational issues. The ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture could be used for the treatment of depression and anxiety, instead of drugs. The purpose of this review was to summarize the existing evidence on acupuncture as a treatment for anxiety and depression. Search of the literature on acupuncture treatment was limited to
specific mental health conditions: depression and anxiety disorder. The literature review focused on systematic reviews. Search focused on the latest versions. The available resources provide some evidence that acupuncture is an effective treatment for these conditions. The findings of the studies show that acupuncture can play an important
Role in the treatment of depression and anxiety.

Introduction

Acupuncture is one of the most popular complementary and alternative therapies.
Acupuncture is a treatment method that originated more than 3,000 years in China and practiced in most of the world. This method is often used as a routine therapy in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and since the late 1970s has gained popularity in the United States and elsewhere in the western world. [1] Acupuncture is increasingly used in psychiatric disorders. The effect of acupuncture in depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke) has been repeatedly demonstrated in controlled studies. [2-7] Traumatic stress disorder develops after a stressful event or situation which has an exceptionally threatening or catastrophic nature, which is likely to cause significant discomfort. Stress disorder classified as an anxiety disorder and is usually defined as the clustering of three clusters of symptoms, ie, revival, marked avoidance, and hyperarousal.
[8,9]

A high-quality RCT evaluated the effect of acupuncture in cognitive behavioral therapy and a waiting list control.
[10] No statistical difference was observed between acupuncture and behavioral therapy. But acupuncture therapy was statistically superior to waiting list control in four outcome measures. The high quality RCT showed that acupuncture had a statistically significant effect compared to a control queue, although no statistical difference was found between acupuncture and behavioral therapy. Also, the therapeutic effect of acupuncture was similar to treatment with behavioral therapy-based test. Kim et al [11] conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of acupuncture for stress disorder with 4 RCT (n = 543) and 2 uncontrolled clinical studies (n = 103). The review included patients with stress disorder regardless of gender, age, ethnicity or external therapy clinics or inpatient treatment. Interventions evaluated were classical acupuncture, electro acupuncture and auricular acupuncture and acupuncture combined with moxibustion. Comparison was made for acupuncture and its variants to controls without treatment, acupuncture and virtual conventional therapies for patients with stress disorder. The results were evaluated using the respective scales of stress disorder, as clinician administered stress disorder scale, the scale and scale depression anxiety. The final results points are not clearly defined. Duration of treatment varies in tests
1-12 weeks. The main findings of this review were: no statistically significant difference was found between acupuncture and cognitive behavioral therapy, but acupuncture was statistically superior to waiting list control. No difference was observed between the group of acupuncture and oral selective serotonin reuptake-inhibitors. Clinical and experimental data suggest that at least some of acupuncture clinical effects mediated by the central nervous system. Functional MRI studies on acupuncture on specific acupoints have not shown significant regulatory effects in the limbic system and subcortical structures. Functional MRI reducing neuronal signal to the limbic system is not surprising in view of the therapeutic effects of acupuncture for disorders including stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Hui et al noted that the stimulation of acupuncture at a specific acupuncture point (ST36) produced a reduction in neuronal activity, especially the limbic and paralimbic structures and limbic brain regions.[12-16]