Acupuncture Decreases the Incidence of Post-stroke Dementia: A Taiwan Nationwide Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND Stroke has been recognized as one of the major causes of adult disability worldwide, and post-stroke dementia may affect up to one-third of stroke survivors. This condition could be prevented if we could recognize and treat it earlier. Acupuncture as a complementary treatment for stroke has been shown to be beneficial for subsequent post-stroke rehabilitation. Our study investigated if acupuncture served additional advantages to decreasing the incidence of post-stroke dementia. METHODS We provide a retrospective cohort study from Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. This study compared the incidence of post-stroke dementia between cohorts with and without acupuncture treatment by calculating adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of acupuncture associated with post-stroke dementia using Cox proportional hazard regressions. The study group was composed of 9,547 patients who received first hospitalization for the treatment of stroke between 2002 and 2004; of which, 47,735 comparison patients were defined as the control group. The two groups were followed-up until the diagnosis of dementia presented or until the end of 2007. RESULTS The adjusted HRs of developing dementia among patients with stroke was 4.705 times the average (range, 4.353–5.085), and the incidence of dementia was higher in males. The study group tended to have less incidence of all kinds of dementia after acupuncture treatment, and patients without stroke receiving acupuncture had a lower probability of dementia than those untreated during the follow-up period. CONCLUSIONS This study presents evidence that acupuncture serves as an effective and alternative procedure to lower the risk of post-stroke dementia and the overall incidence of dementia in Taiwanese population.