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Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:47 PM GMT

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The ancient practice of acupressure may
be able to calm the aggressive behavior that often results from
dementia, a small study suggests.

One of the most common symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other
forms of dementia is agitation. It's expressed in any number of ways;
some people with dementia yell at or physically attack other people,
while others habitually undress themselves or wander.

Agitation not only puts dementia patients at risk of injury, but also
makes their overall care even more challenging.


In the new pilot study, Taiwanese researchers looked at whether
acupressure could offer a relatively simple way to address the
problem.

Long used in traditional Chinese medicine, acupressure is based on
the same principles as acupuncture, but employs touch rather than
needles. According to traditional theory, stimulating particular
points on the skin helps balance the flow of energy, or "chi,"
throughout the body.

With acupressure, practitioners use their fingers to stimulate
these "acupoints," making it a form of massage, explained study co-
author Dr. Li-Chan Lin of National Yang-Ming University in Taipei.

Lin's team tested the technique among 31 dementia patients at one
nursing home. For four weeks, each patient received a 15-minute
acupressure treatment twice a day, five days a week.
As a comparison therapy, the researchers spent another four weeks
visiting the patients each day for a 15-minute talk. Twenty of the 31
patients were able to complete the study.

Overall, Lin's team found, acupressure eased patients' agitation far
better than the talking approach. What's more, the therapy seemed to
calm patients' behavior immediately and reduce their episodes of
aggression over the four-week treatment period.

This suggests that acupressure could be used to ease patients'
symptoms and also to prevent symptoms from occurring in the first
place, the researchers note.

A recent research review found evidence that various forms of touch
therapy, such as gentle massage, can calm dementia patients' anxiety
and agitation.


The authors speculated that it's the simple act of human contact that
might explain the benefit; for people whose ability to communicate
has been taken away by dementia, physical touch may be the easiest or
only way for them to connect with other people.

With its more than 2000-year history in Chinese medicine, acupressure
is a widely accepted form of touch therapy in Taiwan, Lin told
Reuters Health. Because of its similarity to massage, the researcher
added, acupressure might also be readily accepted as a dementia
therapy in Western cultures as well.

SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Nursing, February 2007.