Acupuncture treatment is associated with improvement of symptoms in Tourette's syndrome. - GreenMedInfo Summary
[Clinical observation on acupuncture for treatment of Tourette's syndrome].
Int J Mol Med. 2009 Oct;24(4):513-21. PMID: 16813178
TCM Hospital of Qingzhou City, Shandong 262500, China. [email protected]
OBJECTIVE: To explore an ideal program for acupuncture treatment of Tourette's syndrome (TS).
METHODS: One hundred and two cases of TS were randomly divided into a treatment group of 68 cases and a control group of 34 cases. The treatment group were treated with acupuncture at Taichong (LR 3) and Hegu (LI 4) as main, and the control group with oral administration of heloperidol. Their therapeutic effects were compared, and changes of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) before and after treatment were investigated in the treatment group.
RESULTS: After treatment for 3 courses, 56 cases were cured, 10 improved and 2 ineffective with an effective rate of 97.1% in the treatment group; and 15 cases were cured, 11 improved and 8 ineffective with an effective rate of 76.5% in the control group, with a very significant difference in the effective rate between the two groups (P<0.001); after treatment, the abnormal rate of SEP decreased by 41.1% in the treatment group (P<0.001).
CONCLUSION: Acupuncture is a very effective therapy for TS and has a certain restoring action on mild abnormal change of SEP.