The effects of acupuncture on cognitive impairment of vascular dementia patients: Protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second prevalent dementia worldwide attributable to cognitive impairments. Acupuncture has been applied in clinic as a therapeutic modality to treat VaD. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to evaluate current evidence to explore the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture treatment to cognitive impairment of VaD. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials will be searched restricted to their inception from January 1, 2000 to September 15, 2019. The following literature databases will be searched, including 4 English databases: PubMed, Excerpta Medica Database, the Cochrane Library, Medline, and 4 Chinese databases, namely the China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, the Wanfang Database, the Chinese Scientific Journal Database, and the Chinese BioMedical Literature Database. After the selection and extraction of eligible studies, a meta-analysis will be undertaken to assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture on VaD. The Review Manager Software V.5.3.5 will be employed for meta-analysis to assess the risk of bias, data synthesis, and subgroup analysis. RESULTS: The systematic review and meta-analysis will be carried out to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the treatment of VaD, further provide an evidence-based synthesis for clinical and research applications. CONCLUSIONS: The summary of our systematic review will determine whether acupuncture intervention to VaD is safe and well-tolerated in global status.