Anxiety is common among patients with Parkinson’s disease, and is characterised by lack of concentration, continuous feeling of worry, muscle tension, and increased severity of tremors. Patients with Parkinson’s disease and anxiety show greater disability and poorer wellbeing than these patients without anxiety. Essentially, disturbances in gait and freezing of gait have been reported to be associated with anxiety symptoms. Thus, timely monitoring and controlling anxiety is crucial. Apart from medications and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the efficacy of alternative therapies in managing psychiatric disorders including anxiety has been investigated in various studies. For instance, in a recent randomised control trial by Fan et al. (2022), 64 patients with Parkinson’s disease and anxiety were randomly allocated to receive 8 weeks of acupuncture or sham treatment, with an 8-week follow-up. The acupuncture was performed at the acupoints GV 24 (shen ting), GV 29 (yin tang), bilateral HT7 (shen men), bilateral SP 6 (san yin jiao), and Si Shen Zhen, whereas non-insertion procedure was done for sham control. At the end of treatment, the variation of Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A) score was 0.22 between the acupuncture and sham groups. At the end of follow-up, the acupuncture group had a significant 7.03-point greater reduction in HAM-A score compared with the sham group. These results thus suggested that acupuncture may improve anxiety in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Reference:

Fan et al. JAMA Netw open. 2022;5(9):E2232133. doi:10.1001/JAMANETWORKOPEN.2022.32133