Acupuncture for behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia: A protocol of systematic review

BACKGROUND: Dementia is a major mental health problem worldwide, and an optimal anti-dementia drug that could modify its core symptoms has not been developed yet. Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), an important clinical manifestation of dementia, is closely related to disease burden, caregiver burden, and consequent social burden. In general, many experts and international guidelines prefer non-pharmacological interventions, including psychosocial intervention, and complementary and integrative medicine in the management of BPSD. However, in clinical settings, psychotropic drugs are frequently used; therefore, the need to establish and actively use effective non-pharmacological interventions is emphasized. Therefore, in this systematic review, we will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture, a promising non-pharmacological complementary and integrative medicine, for BPSD. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A comprehensive search will be conducted in 13 electronic medical databases. Regardless of its design, original clinical studies, such as randomized controlled clinical trials, nonrandomized controlled clinical trials, and before-after studies, will be included to assess the beneficial effects and safety of acupuncture on BPSD. The severity of BPSD symptoms assessed by the validated tool will be considered as a primary outcome. The secondary outcome included the total effective rate, daily living activities and quality of life of patients, burden and quality of life of caregiver, placement in a long-term care facility from home, and safety data. The study selection, data extraction, and quality assessment process were performed by 2 independent researchers. The methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed using validated tools according to its design, such as the Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool. RevMan version 5.3 will be used to perform the meta-analysis, with mean differences for continuous outcomes and risk ratio for binary outcomes, and 95% confidence intervals. A fixed- or random-effects model will be used according to the heterogeneity and number of included studies. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: As this protocol is for a systematic review, ethical approval is not required. The results of the systematic review will be disseminated by the publication of a manuscript in a peer-reviewed journal or presentation at a relevant conference. REGISTRATION NUMBER: OSF (URL: https://osf.io/hu5ac), PROSPERO (CRD42020211005) (URL: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42020211005).