Acupuncture in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders: A Bibliometric Analysis

Silva Beloni^*
*Correspondence: Silva Beloni, Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, Email:

Introduction

Anxiety disorders affect approximately 264 million people worldwide, according to a recent study. Major symptoms of anxiety disorders include nervous worry without a clear object, fidgeting palpitations, hand tremors, sweating and other neurological dysfunctions. These symptoms have a significant impact on the body's work and life and increase the risk of events like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and tumors. Anxiety disorders are a common sleep disorder. As a result, effective treatments for anxiety disorders are crucial to clinical care. Although psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are the most common treatments for anxiety disorders, they are difficult to use because of their specialization, long duration and low patient compliance. Additionally, the tranquilizers known as benzodiazepines, which are frequently used to treat anxiety disorders, have side effects such as drug dependence and a hangover the next day. Acupuncture's unique multi-target, multi-level and multi-pathway approach makes it an important part of Chinese medicine in China. Because of its significant clinical efficacy, it is included in the Chinese Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Anxiety Disorder.

Description

A trend that is consistent with trends in other fields and suggests that the impact of acupuncture on anxiety disorders is becoming more profound internationally is the increase in the amount of international literature on acupuncture for anxiety disorders over the past few years. Chinese Acupuncture and Trails published 59 articles on the topic, accounting for 26.82 percent of them. This demonstrates that acupuncture therapy is effective in treating anxiety disorders and is worthy of further investigation. There is a need for greater academic exchange in the future to promote research in this area, despite the fact that research on acupuncture for anxiety disorders is distributed regionally throughout the world. Options for treatment First, researchers at the national and international levels have focused not only on long-term anxiety disorders but also on disorders that are linked to other diseases, like: disorders of anxiety related to cancer; perimenopausal-related anxiety disorders, demonstrating the significance that researchers place on individuality and precision, in line with the most recent global update of viewpoints [1].

However, there are still a variety of academic perspectives regarding the types of anxiety disorders, with some advocating the classification of these disorders into acute and chronic categories; There are some academics who advocate dividing anxiety disorders and their symptoms into three categories: generalized, acute and phobic; Additionally, some researchers contend that perimenopausal anxiety disorder and tumor-related anxiety disorder are frequent causes of anxiety disorders [2]. In order to find the most effective expression of anxiety disorders, future research should make use of cuttingedge technology to investigate the life history, personality, anxiety trajectory and physiological indicators of patients with anxiety disorders [3].

Second, despite the fact that conventional acupuncture therapy has been widely used in clinical practice (1112 articles, or 50.91% of all articles), the American College of Physicians' clinical guidelines have not recommended it due to the lack of valid evidence. The reasons for the lack of valid evidence can be investigated by analyzing randomized controlled trials of conventional acupuncture interventions in order to provide a follow-up study of clinical studies on acupuncture that is closer to clinical practice. A meta-analysis revealed that patients experienced significant improvement in their anxiety disorders after more than three weeks of intervention, despite the inconsistent frequency and periodicity of interventions for the same type of anxiety disorder. All patients showed significant improvement in their anxiety disorders with acupuncture. As a result, upcoming research might investigate the effect that various sessions have on the efficacy of acupuncture treatment as well as the search for a session that is both clinically acceptable and produces the best results.

Additionally, only 72 reports (32.73 percent) mentioned follow-up for a maximum of one year and a minimum of one week. All of these reports indicated that acupuncture remained in place during follow-up; however, no systematic studies have been conducted to date. Relevant studies could be conducted to investigate the sustained effects of acupuncture for anxiety disorders in order to determine the best time to use acupuncture in order to improve its efficacy. The top three acupoints that are commonly used in the Chinese and English literature are Baihui, Neiguan and Shenmen, which is consistent with the previous findings. However, there is little research on the clinical effects of various acupuncture combinations; Consequently, additional research is required to select the ideal acupuncture combination for the clinic in the future. Observational indicators The researchers evaluated and measured anxiety, affective impact and cognitive function using the subjective scale; Because of this, the researchers will concentrate more on investigating the interaction and mechanism of action across multiple domains [4]. High-tech instruments like MRIs and sleep monitors are used for objective indicators. Sleep monitors record the patient's EEG and ECG activity, which enables researchers to objectively evaluate the effects of treatment in terms of anxiety parameters and HRV. Additionally, sleep monitors enable researchers to analyze EEG signals using theories like ApEn, D2 and EEG super-slow fluctuations in order to observe the immediate or long-term effects of acupuncture on their modulation and to investigate potential mechanisms of action.

However, existing sleep monitors are limited in their application due to their low sensitivity, low accuracy of output data, expensive equipment and cumbersome operation; therefore, more sophisticated and user-friendly equipment can be developed to study its mechanism of action with greater precision. The signal strength of various brain regions can be reflected by FMR. Low frequency amplitude, local coherence analysis, seed point analysis and the nodal centrality of voxels were used by researchers to examine the intensity of activity in each brain region, the strength of functional connections in each brain region and the functional changes in resting state brain regions and their potential central role [5].

Consistent with the results of subjective scales, the findings demonstrated that acupuncture can regulate mood, activity in cognitive-related brain regions and functional brain networks in patients with functional connections, thereby reducing anxiety latency, decreasing anxiety continuity, decreasing anxiety duration and improving anxious-depressed mood. The hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal axis-related adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone and anxiety-related adrenaline, lactate, neurotransmitters, monoamine neurotransmitters (e.g. 5-hydroxytryptamine, norepinephrine, dopamine), TNF-, IL-1, IL-6 and other blood indicators were used to investigate Although no efficient mechanism has yet been identified, the mechanism of the role of serum markers in anxiety disorders must be thoroughly investigated in subsequent studies. The findings suggest that acupuncture can regulate the release of anxiety hormones like adrenaline, resulting in less anxiety.

Conclusion

The clinical treatment of anxiety disorders greatly benefits from acupuncture therapy. To better direct the clinic in the future, we should concentrate on investigating the phenotype of anxiety disorders, the immediate and long-term effects of acupuncture and its mechanism of action.

Acknowledgment

None.

Conflict of Interest

No conflict of interest.

References

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