Electrical stimulation of acupuncture points in treatment of sleep disorders

Insomnia is a frequent complaint in primary medical care. Many drugs are available to treat sleep disorders. Sleeping pills show a lot of side effects such as daytime dizziness and lack of concentration. There are some studies about treatment of insomnia without drugs, for example using acupuncture or electroacupuncture. In an outpatient service in Vienna, Austria, patients with functional disorders or different pain diagnosis are treated with acupuncture over 20 years. Patients are requested to fill in a questionnaire concerning the intensity of pain, psychic discomfort and quality of sleep prior to treatment and at the end of treatment. To investigate if acupuncture or electroacupuncture is helping to improving sleep disorders, a retrospective study was carried out. 62% of the patients treated for pain syndromes show also a disturbance of sleep. After the end of treatment, half of them improved not only in pain intensity, but also in the quality of sleep. To show the influence of electroacupuncture for primary insomnia a randomized controlled pilot trial with 12 patients was done. Improvement of daytime vigilance could be shown after the first treatment and staying on for 10 weeks with one treatment per week.