Wednesday, 19 January 2011

Auricular acupuncture for insomnia:a randomized controlled trial

Institute: Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, General Hospital of Peoples Liberation Army, Beijing

Date: 2010 Dec;31(12):1400-1402


Author: Jiang B, Ma ZH, Zuo F.

Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of auricular acupuncture therapy (AAT) and standardized acupoints on sleep parameters among people with insomnia.

METHODS: A single-blind, randomized pilot study where the treatment group AAT on active points and the control group received AAT on sham points during a 4-week treatment period. Participants were recruited from the Acupuncture Outpatient Clinics in the General Hospital of People's Liberation Army. In all, 125 patients were included in the study, with 63 in treatment group and 62 in control group. Sleep parameters were obtained by using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).

RESULTS: (1) Significant improvement in the PSQI total score and seven components score including sleep quality, time on falling asleep, sleeping time, efficiency and disorder of sleep, hypnotic and daytime functional disorder after treatment in both treatment group and control group (P <>