SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Movement Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1381500
Combination treatment with acupoint therapy and conventional medication for non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China
- 2Sichuan Integrative Medicine Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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Background: Managing Parkinson's non-motor symptoms(PD-NMS) is challenging. Traditional methods have limited efficacy for NMS. Acupoint therapy offers a safe and personalized option. There has been a growing number of studies on acupoint therapies for PD-NMS. However, a systematic review of their effectiveness and safety is currently not available. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupoint therapy for PD-NMS.Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, China Science and Technology Journal Database, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database were searched. Data were analyzed using fixed or random effects models. Randomized controlled trials(RCT) in Chinese and English relating to acupoint therapy for NMS in PD (PD-NMS), individuals diagnosed with PD, primary and secondary outcome measures are HAMD, MMSE, MoCA, PDSS, PSQI were included. Cochrane risk-of-bias tool(ROB 2) for RCT was used. Meta-analyses were performed to calculate the RR and WMD. Subgroup analyses, sensitivity analyses, and funnel plot analyses were conducted.Results: Forty-two studies (3120 PD-NMS patients) from database establishment to May 2023 were included. According to the ROB 2 evaluation, risks of bias in random sequence generation, missing data, and selective reporting were low, moderate in allocation concealment, and high in blinding. Acupoint therapy combined with CM or NDT was more effective than single - therapy in most outcome measures like effective rate, HAMD, MoCA, PDSS, and PSQI, but the MMSE difference was non-significant.Conclusion: Due to the large number of research subjects, differences in the severity of the diseases, and possible variations of the intervention details, there is a certain degree of heterogeneity in the research results. However, acupoint therapy or acupoint therapy combined with CM could be an option for the treatment of PD-NMS in the future.
Keywords: Parkinson ' s disease, Acupoint Therapy, Non-motor symptom, randomized controlled trials, Meta- analysis
Received: 07 Feb 2024; Accepted: 21 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Zhu, Xie, Zhou, Zeng and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zhengyan Wang, Sichuan Integrative Medicine Hospital, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.