On October 26, 2021, the results of the 13th cognitive test for Mr. Wang, a patient in the Department of Acupuncture and Encephalopathy, came out. The MMSE scale: 24 points, an increase of 2 points from the initial consultation on September 6 last year. The evaluation results showed that after one year of acupuncture and herbal medicine treatment, Mr. Wang's cognitive level was basically the same as that at the first visit a year ago, and improved.

In September 2020, Mr. Wang came to the acupuncture clinic of our hospital for the first time. His daughter, accompanied him, was very anxious: "Doctor, my father's memory has been declining for more than 7 months, and now he can't remember to take medicine. If he remembers to take medicine, he doesn't know how many pills of each medicine to take. Sometimes he can't find where his bedroom is after getting up at night. During the day he tends to take naps..." At this moment, Mr. Wang sat quietly and said nothing. Through inquiries and related examinations, he was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's disease.

Mr. Wang has started to take a drug for Alzheimer's disease regularly one month before his visit. We recommended adding acupuncture and herbal medicine treatments on the basis of continuing to take the drug. A week later, Mr. Wang's daughter reported that he was in better spirits during the day, and the number of naps was significantly reduced.

Traditional Chinese medicine（TCM） believes that the basic pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease is " the brain marrow reduces, and the brain loses its ability to function".
Acupuncture treatment is based on the basic principle of "regulating and replenishing the sea of marrow, refreshing the mind and opening the orificium". Acupuncture department of our hospital adopts electro-acupuncture on the head acupoints such as Baihui, Sishencong and others as the basic acupoint prescription according to the common clinical manifestations of patients. The patients with different clinical manifestations were treated based on syndrome differentiation, that is, the basic acupoint prescription adds other acupoints, and combined with herbal decoction treatment according to the needs of the disease, so as to form a personalized treatment plan.

In March 2021, Mr. Wang had to stop taking the drug for Alzheimer's disease due to an adverse reaction to the drug. His treatment thereafter was mainly acupuncture combined with herbal decoction. During this period, his condition had been relatively stable, and he was more active and cooperative during the consultation process than at the initial consultation. Recently, he had been able actively to pay attention to the waiting order during the waiting period.

MMSE Cognitive Scale Test after stopping of taking the drug for Alzheimer's disease in March 2021

With acupuncture and herbal medicine treatment, the patient's condition remained stable.

In the MMSE scale test, there is a question that requires patients to write a sentence containing a subject and a predicate, and the content is self-determined. In the first test, Mr. Wang wrote "Someone hit me". In previous tests, most patients would write sentences such as "I came to the hospital today", which is very rare in Mr. Wang's case. After asking the family members in detail, the doctor learned that the patient's wife was usually quick-tempered. After Mr. Wang became ill, he often couldn't remember taking medicine. He often made mistakes when taking the medicine himself, and he was not concerned about family affairs as much as before, so it was inevitable that his wife would often complain, which increased Mr. Wang's psychological burden.

After full communication with the family, the doctor explained in detail why the patient had these clinical manifestations, and suggested that the family should give Mr. Wang more patience and understanding. From the third test, Mr. Wang 's writing changed to "I went to the hospital to see a doctor".
Reviewing the treatment for patients in the past year, acupuncture and moxibustion and herbal medicine have exerted  a practical effect. At the same time, we also deeply realized that in the process of treatment, the cooperation of doctors, patients and family members can help the patient to the greatest extent in the control of the patient's condition.

MMSE
Date	Orientation （10'）	Memory （6'）	Calculation （5'）	Language （8'）	visual space （1'）	total score （30'）
2020.09.06	5	4	5	8	0	22
2021.03.17	6	4	5	8	0	23
2021.04.18	5	4	5	8	1	23
2021.05.23	6	4	5	8	0	23
2021.06.27	8	5	4	8	0	25
2021.7.25	6	5	5	7	0	23
2021.8.22	7	5	5	8	0	25
2021.9.26	6	6	4	8	0	24

Patient's first MMSE scale test in September 2020

The third test after the patient was treated with acupuncture and herbal medicine

More and more Alzheimer's patients come to our hospital to seek acupuncture and herbal medicine treatment. Feedback from patients and their families, as well as clinical research results have confirmed that acupuncture and herbal medicine play an important role in the treatment of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The advantage of acupuncture in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is that under the premise of ensuring the therapeutic effect, when combined with western medicine, it can not only enhance the curative effect of western medicine, but also alleviate the side effects caused by taking western medicine, which is suitable for long-term treatment.



Dementia and tremor special clinic of acupuncture department

Western medicine diagnosis, TCM syndrome differentiation, acupuncture and herbal medicine are used to treat various types of dementia. The early diagnosis and treatment of dementia has obvious curative and stable effect. The combination of acupuncture and herbal medicine has enabled many  patients with treatable tremors  to better restore social function and living ability with timely treatments.

Working time of Jia Baohui, a medical professor, Department of Acupuncture and Encephalopathy
Dementia and tremor special clinic	Wednesday afternoon
General specialist clinic	Tuesday morning, Thursday morning
VIP clinic	Tuesday afternoon, Sunday morning
support hotline	18801094908 (Doctor Li)