Caretakers of dementia patients

Pressing for Benefits

When you assist someone who’s ill, in most cases a patient will respond with gratitude. But for many who care for dementia patients, just the opposite is true.

About half of all dementia patients display agitated behavior, such as restlessness, pacing, aimless wandering, repetitious mannerisms, complaining, cursing, and – in the worst cases – screaming, hitting, and kicking. This behavior is highly frustrating, of course, and increases the risk of injury to both patient and caregiver.

But a little pressure might help.

Restoring calm

Researchers at Taiwan’s Institute of Clinical Nursing at National Yang-Ming University recently conducted a study that tested acupressure on dementia patients who displayed agitated behavior. Acupressure is a traditional Chinese medicine technique in which pressure is applied by hand to the same acupoints where needles are inserted for acupuncture procedures.

Researchers recruited 31 subjects with dementia who were living in an assisted care facility (only 20 subjects completed the study – 11 subjects were discharged or hospitalized). All of the subjects displayed agitated behavior, and in more than two-thirds of the group this behavior was considered severe.

Over a four-week intervention period, each subject received acupressure treatments that lasted 15 minutes, two times each day, five days per week. In the week before treatment began, researchers evaluated each subject and assigned scores in different categories of agitated behavior. Subjects were reevaluated at the end of the intervention period, and again one week after treatment was discontinued.

The results:

• An average agitated behavior score of nearly 80, recorded before the trial began, dropped more than 20 points over the four-week treatment period

• A score that measured verbal attacks dropped from 2.8 to 0.2

• In the week after treatment was discontinued, this score rose again to 1.3

• A score that measured physical attacks (such as beating and scratching) dropped from 5.5 to 0.5

• In the week after treatment was discontinued, this score rose again to 2.1

• Aimless wandering (measured with pedometers) dropped from more than 5,300 steps per day to about 2,600 steps per day

• In the week after treatment was discontinued, aimless wandering steps rose again to nearly 3,375

Five important points

Professor Li-Chan Lin, one of the authors of the Yang-Ming University study, told Medical News Today that the acupressure used in the study can be taught to caregivers and practiced at home or in assisted care facilities.

Researchers used these five acupoints in the study:

• Fengchi (GB 20)
• Baihui (Du 20)
• Shenmen (He 7)
• Niguan (Pe 6)
• Sanyinjiao (Sp 6)

Getting acupressure training for just five acupoints may be difficult. You can find a directory of schools that teach acupressure at a web site called NaturalHealers.com. But for simpler training that’s not part of a degree program, you might have better luck consulting a local acupressurist.

If you have trouble locating an acupressurist in your area, check with local acupuncture practices. Some of them may also offer acupressure treatments, or may be able to recommend someone who does.

And for information on herbal treatments that have been shown to reduce agitation and improve quality of life for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease patients, check the e-Alert “Riders of the Purple Sage” (9/29/05), which you can find at this link: http://www.hsionline.com/ealerts/ea200509/ea20050929.html