Acupuncture Tied to Improved Sleep in Parkinson’s Disease

TOPLINE:

Acupuncture significantly improved sleep quality in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), with benefits lasting up to 8 weeks, results from a randomized clinical trial showed. Participants who received real acupuncture (RA) showed greater improvement in sleep scores vs their counterparts who received sham acupuncture (SA).

METHODOLOGY:

• This single-center, double-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in Guangzhou, China, from February 2022 to February 2023.
• Participants were recruited from the university’s Parkinson’s clinic and were eligible if they self-reported moderate or severe sleep problems or had a Parkinson Disease Sleep Scale (PDSS) score between 0 and 110, were aged 30-80 years old, and maintained stable use of anti-Parkinson medication for more than 30 days.
• A total of 83 eligible participants were randomly assigned to receive either RA or SA in a 1:1 ratio prior to the baseline assessment. All participants received sleep hygiene guidance and maintained their initial dosage of anti-Parkinson medication throughout the study.
• SA was administered using specially designed sham stainless steel needles lacking a sharp tip, rendering it difficult to pierce the skin and penetrate subcutaneous tissue.

TAKEAWAY:

• A total of 83 participants with a mean age of 64 completed the 4-week study, including the 4-week follow-up. Of these, 40 were randomly assigned to the RA group and 38 to the SA group.
• The RA and SA groups both demonstrated statistically significant improvement 4 weeks posttreatment and at 8-week follow-up. However, patients in the active treatment group experienced significantly greater improvement than the SA group as measured by the PDSS (P < .001).
• At 8-week follow-up, those who received RA also showed significant improvement in the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (P = .001), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (P < .001), and the 39-item Parkinson Disease Questionnaire (P = .006) compared with patients who received the sham intervention.

IN PRACTICE:

“Considering the interaction between sleep conditions and motor symptoms, as well as the effects of poor sleep on quality of life, acupuncture seems to enhance overall function and quality of life in participants with PD by alleviating sleep disturbances,” the authors noted.

SOURCE:

Mingyue Yan, PhD, of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, led the study, which was published online on June 26 in JAMA Network Open.

LIMITATIONS:

The nature of acupuncture resulted in the acupuncturists being unblinded, and the follow-up period was limited to 4 weeks, potentially restricting the assessment of the long-term effects and sustainability of acupuncture interventions.

DISCLOSURES:

Mingyue Yan, PhD, and Yuting Wang, PhD, reported holding a patent for the sham needle described in this trial. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article. The study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Guangdong Provincial College and the University Innovative Research Team Project (Natural Sciences).

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.