AUTHOR=He Wenbo , Li Meixuan , Han Xuemei , Zhang Wei 

TITLE=Acupuncture for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia: An Overview of Systematic Reviews

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/aging-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2021.647629

DOI=10.3389/fnagi.2021.647629

ISSN=1663-4365

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Dementia is a gradual decline in cognitive ability and is becoming more common in our elderly population. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is defined as a slight clinical deterioration of memory capacity, below the level of normal aging, but does not constitute a clinical diagnosis of dementia. To date, no interventions have been proven to cure MCI and dementia fully.</p><p><bold>Purpose:</bold> To evaluate the potential effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia and evaluate the methodological quality of systematic reviews (SRs).</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> We conducted a literature search for SRs with meta-analyses in seven Chinese and international databases through October 1, 2020. The basic characteristics of the included SRs/meta-analyses and the basic information of the original included randomized controlled trials were extracted by three reviewers independently. A meta-analysis of the original randomized controlled trials from the included SRs/meta-analyses was performed using Stata 12.0 software. The Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews 2 was used to assess the methodological quality of the included SRs/meta-analyses, and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation was used to rate the quality of evidence.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> A total of 35 SRs/meta-analyses were included, and the majority showed that acupuncture was more effective than western medicine or conventional therapy for MCI and dementia [odds ratio =1.39; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.24, 1.56]. There was a statistically significant difference in the Mini-Mental State Examination score (weighted mean difference = 1.23; 95% CI: 0.78, 1.68; <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.00001), and there was no significant improvement in the activities of daily living score (weighted mean difference = 1.58; 95% CI: −0.02, 3.18; <italic>p</italic> = 0.053). The assessment results of Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews 2 showed that the methodological quality of most included SRs/meta-analyses was critically low; the lowest scores were items 2, 7, and 10. For Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation, of the 73 outcomes, 50 (68.5%) outcomes were low or very low quality, and 23 (31.5%) outcomes were moderate quality.</p><p><bold>Conclusions:</bold> Acupuncture can be considered as an alternative for the treatment of MCI and dementia when western medicine or other therapies are contraindicated. More high-quality evidence is needed to determine further the effectiveness of acupuncture.</p>