Acupuncture effective anxiety treatment for those with Parkinson’s disease

Acupuncture was shown to be an effective treatment for anxiety in patients with Parkinson’s disease, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

Approximately 31% of patients with Parkinson’s disease have anxiety, which is generally untreated and often evident as patients may experience lack of concentration, continuous feelings of worry, muscle tension and increased severity of tremors, Jing-qi Fan, PhD, of the Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, and colleagues wrote.

Fan and colleagues aimed to assess the effects of acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture for the treatment of anxiety in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The authors conducted a randomized, double-blinded clinical trial, which enrolled 70 eligible patients between June 20, 2021, and Feb. 26, 2022.

Patients with Parkinson’s disease and anxiety were allocated at a 1:1 rate to receive either acupuncture or sham acupuncture for 8 weeks. Primary outcomes were measured by Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) score.

Of the 70 patients, 64 (91%) completed the intervention at the 8-week follow-up, including 34 men and 30 women, who had a mean age of 61.8 years.

At the end of treatment, the variation in HAM-A scores between the real acupuncture group and the sham group was 0.22 (95% CI, –0.63 to 1.07). However, at the end of follow-up, the real acupuncture group had a significant 7.03-point greater reduction in HAM-A score (95% CI, 6.18-7.88) compared with the sham acupuncture group.

“These findings suggest that acupuncture may improve overall motor functions and well-being of patients with [Parkinson’s disease] by ameliorating the anxiety,” the authors wrote.