Acupuncture in the Treatment of Depression

Xavier Chen2010/12/08

Before the report begins…

What is acupuncture? Did you or your families have acupuncture before? Please share the experience with us.

“Acupuncture” is an alternative therapy which originated in China thousands of years ago.

It stimulates the body to promote its Natural healing mechanism. It is much related to Chinese philosophy

Q. What is the difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine ?

Needle piercing

Chinese Philosophy and Acupuncture

Chinese Philosophy is composed of Dao, yin and yang, and five elements

Balance

Five Elements

How Dose Acupuncture Work?

Qi( 氣 ) is a energy running in regular ways through the body.

Needles are thought to be a tool to reopen the blocked Qi channel and restore the flow.

Twelve meridians are found in the body: six are yin, and six are yang.

Over 400,and even up to 2000, different acupuncture points are along the Qi channels.

Scientists believe that “needling the acupuncture points stimulates the nervous system to release chemicals.

Natural healing ability [Movie]

Acupuncture in the past Acupuncture is used for digestive,

respiratory, neurological, muscular disorders, as well as reproductive problems.

A New Thought—Acupuncture

for Depression

Thoughts of Chinese medicine: joy, anger, worry, anxiety, grief, fear, panic and other emotional states Blocked Qi channel Depression.

[Movie]

Research 1:Does Acupuncture Really Treat Depression

Effectively?(Manber, Allen&Morris, 2002)

38 women with major depression

A specific treatment

Nonspecific treatment

Wait list

Results:

The specific treatment’s reduction in depression scores was not significantly different than the control group

But self-report and clinical interviews showed that specific treatment was significantly more beneficial than the non-specific group.

Reaserch 2:Acupuncture versus Pharmacology (A)

Larzelere and Wiseman (2002)

41 patients with HAM-D scores of 25 or higher

Antidepressants

Acupuncture

Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D )

a multiple choice questionnaire that clinicians may use to

rate the severity of a patient's major depression

>25----major depression18-24--moderate depression7-17--- mild depression<6-----normal

Results:

Effects were equal But Acupuncture was effective in

decreasing anxiety symptom prevalence.

(Roschke, Wolf, &Beck, 2000)

Randomly assigned 70 depressed patients

Antidepressant + acupuncture

Antidepressant

Antidepressant + placebo acupuncture

Research 3:Acupuncture versus Pharmacology (B)

Results:

There was greater improvement when acupuncture was applied compared to plain pharmacological treatment

Reaserch 4:A Six trial meta-analysis

(Smith & Hay, 2004)

517 subjects diagnosed with depression

Acupuncture

Placebo acupuncture

No treatment

Pharmacological treatmentpsychotherapies

Standard care

Results:

No evidence that acupuncture was better than medication in reducing the severity of depression, or in improving depression.

Q1.Try to analyze the effect of acupuncture according these

research.

Q2.Can we view acupuncture as a placebo?

Supporting herbs 1.herbs to cure severe depression or make nerve

system stable: 龍骨、牡蠣 、琥珀、龍齒。

2.hurbs used to cure bad mood,chest tightness:

陳皮、半夏、茯苓、青皮、枳實。

3.hurbs used to make Qi run in regular ways 桃仁、蓮藕、川芎、元胡、紅花、川七、乙金、丹參 。

Conclusion Many of the trials have found that

acupuncture works at least as effectively as medication concerning reduction of symptoms.

By self-report and clinical interviews showed that patients themselves think acupuncture helps a lot.

There is no article to show how acupuncture plus herbs work. People who research Chinese medicine can take more efforts in this part.

Outline

1. Introduction of the traditional acupuncture and how to apply it to healing depression.

2. Show the statistics in journals to prove its efficacy

3. Critic: journals only focus on datas ,ignoring the basic mechanism of acupuncture.

4. Introduce the mechanism that how acupuncture heals depression.

5. Chinese medicine’s dilemma in international journals

6. Vision of acupuncture and depression