Effects of acupuncture on patients with Alzheimer's disease: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading progressive neurodegenerative disease worldwide, accompanied with nonreversible cognitive impairments. Acupuncture, as the traditional Chinese technique, is widely applied in clinical trials for AD. The aim of this review is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the aspect of antidementia. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) related to acupuncture treatment targeting AD will be collected. We will search the following 4 databases of electronic English resources, including PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and 4 Chinese databases, namely CNKI, CBM, VIP, and Wanfang database. All the RCTs will be searched from their inception to November 2018. After screening the studies, a meta-analysis of RCTs will be carried out. Subsequently, the assessment of bias risk, data synthesis, subgroup analysis will be conducted using RevMan V.5.3.5 software if the setting condition is met. RESULTS: This systematic view and meta-analysis will assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture intervention on AD patients, which is fundamentally based on current published evidence, and provide a high-quality synthesis for clinical practitioners of treating AD with acupuncture, CONCLUSION: The summary of our systematic view will determine whether acupuncture intervention could be an efficient and feasible approach to the treatment of AD patients.