Highlights

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  Most Parkinson's patients are accompanied by Neuropsychiatric symptoms.

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  Acupuncture is a widely used and safety therapy.

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  Acupuncture can alleviate the Neuropsychiatric symptoms of Parkinson's patients.

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  More high-quality acupuncture research is needed in the future.

Abstract

Background

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPSs) of Parkinson's disease (PD) have received increasing attention, but effective treatment options remain limited. Acupuncture may have clinical benefits for NPSs in PD patients, but high-quality evidence supporting this possibility still needs to be discovered. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of acupuncture treatment on NPSs in PD patients.

Methods

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture treatment for PD retrieved from the following electronic databases: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus, were used to evaluate NPSs of PD patients. The Cochrane Intervention System Evaluation Manual assessed the methodological quality.

Results

A total of 13 RCTs involving 719 patients were included. The results showed that compared with medication alone or sham acupuncture, acupuncture improved sleep quality in PD patients, with Parkinson's Disease Sleep Scale (PDSS) [standardized mean difference (SMD)= 0.48, 95% confidence interval (CI)= 0.242 to 0.793, P = 0.001]. The I scores and total scores on Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) indicated acupuncture treatment was effective (SMD=−0.66, 95%CI=−0.66 to −0.18, P = 0.042; SMD=−0.77, 95%CI=−1.31 to −0.23, P = 0.005). Results of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39) showed no statistically significant differences (SMD=−0.27, 95%CI=−0.08 to 0.62, P = 0.128; SMD=−0.20, 95%CI=−0.42 to 0.01, P = 0.554). Anxiety and depression research had no significant differences due to the excessive inter-study bias.