The article that I chose was called Complementary acupuncture treatment increases cerebral metabolism in patients with Parkinson’s disease. I chose this article because working in a rehabilitation center I get to see a lot of patients that suffer from Parkinson’s disease and I was curious to see if acupuncture could help improve symptoms of PD.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is related to a degeneration of the substantia nigra and to the loss of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Symptoms include having tremors, stooped posture, festinating gait, muscular rigidity, and akinesia. In the today’s generation PD is known to be the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and is will be increasing as many of us age. Recent studies have shown that acupuncture has been used to treatment PD in Asia and the United States. However, there have been mixed reviews to determine if acupuncture really benefits patients with PD. Chinese literature has reported that needling and scalp acupoints of chorea-tremor-controlling areas may alleviate symptoms and improve that quality of life for those who suffer from PD. The aim of the present study is to use “positron emission tomography (PET) and a flourodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) tracer to investigate cerebral effects of Madopa and the combination of Madopa and acupuncture treatment in patients with PD.”
There were a total of ten patients with PD that were recruited from the Southern Hospital of Southern Medical University and the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical College. All the participants received a dose of Madopa orally depending on their severity of their condition. Participants who were in the combined treatment group also were treated with scalp acupuncture. All treatments were given for a total of 5 weeks, lasting 30 min for 6 days followed by 1 day rest. A PET scan was given before and after the four weeks of acupuncture focusing on regions of the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, occipital lobes, parietal lobes, cingulate gyri, caudate nuclei, lentiform nuclei, thalamus, and cerebellum.
Researchers found that there were no changes in the control group, but those who received acupuncture treatment did. Those who had acupuncture showed an increase of glucose metabolism in the frontal lobe, occipital lobe, temporal lobe, thalamus, and cerebellum. In conclusion researchers found if there were ways to increase survival and increase receptor activity of dopaminergic neurons they may be able to explain why “there were a higher number of brain regions with increased metabolism in the less-affected compared to the most-affected hemisphere in patients who received complementary acupuncture treatment.”
YONG, H., XUEMEI, J., YING, Z., ANWU, T., & WIK, G. (2009). Complementary Acupuncture Treatment Increases Cerebral Metabolism in Patients with Parkinson's Disease. International Journal Of Neuroscience, 119(8), 1190-1197. doi:10.1080/00207450802336774
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