Acupuncture and Related Therapies for the Cognitive Function of Alzheimer’s Disease: A Network Meta-Analysis

Acupuncture and acupuncture-related therapies are effective for Alzheimer's disease (AD), therefore, we aimed to compare and rank the interventions that mainly focus on acupuncture-related therapies in the treatment of patients with mild to moderate AD.

We used network meta-analysis to evaluate the direct and indirect evidence shown in randomized controlled trials of AD. The data were analyzed using RavMan manager, Stata, and WinBUGS software after two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies.

We analyzed a total of 36 eligible studies, including 2712 patients, involving 14 types of acupuncture-related therapies and comprehensive therapies. For Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), acupuncture (ACU) combined with cognitive and memory training (Training) was more effective than ACU, ACU+Chinese herb (CH), ACU+Donepezil (DON), CH, DON, DON+Nimodipine (NIM), Music therapy (Music), NIM, Placebo, and Training (P<0.05), while ACU+CH was batter than CH (P<0.05), and ACU+DON+NIM was better than DON+NIM (P<0.05). For Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive section (ADAS-cog), ACU was more effective than DON and placebo (P<0.05). For Activities of Daily Living (ADL), ACU+DON was better than CH, DON, NIM, and Placebo (P<0.05). For the clinical effectiveness rate, ACU, ACU+CH, ACU+CH+DON, ACU+CH+DON+NIM, ACU+DON, CH, NIM were all more effective than DON+NIM (P<0.05), while ACU and ACU+CH were better than DON (P<0.05). The comprehensive ranking results show that ACU+training and ACU have the highest ranking probability.

ACU+Training and ACU may be the best therapies to improve the cognitive function of patients with mild to moderate AD, while the combination of acupuncture-related therapies and other therapies has a higher overall benefit.